Former White Home adviser Elon Musk on Tuesday issued a blistering criticism of President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bundle, calling it a “disgusting abomination” because the Senate seeks to rapidly go the measure and ship it to Trump’s desk earlier than July 4.
“Disgrace on those that voted for it: you recognize you probably did fallacious. You realize it,” Musk mentioned in a submit on X, the social media platform he owns. He added that the bundle is a “huge, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending invoice.”
The feedback marked Musk’s most public break but with the President, and landed simply days after he formally stepped down from his function as head of the Division of Authorities Effectivity, an advisory workplace created by Trump to establish and remove waste throughout the federal authorities. However it’s not the primary time Musk has criticized the invoice. Final month he gave cowl to Republican critics, saying that the measure failed to scale back the federal deficit and undermined his DOGE efforts.
In a separate submit Tuesday, Musk added that the invoice would “massively improve the already gigantic price range deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden [American] residents with crushingly unsustainable debt.” He seemed to be referencing projections from price range analysts who estimate the laws may add greater than $2.5 trillion over the following decade to the nationwide deficit, which has grown to $1.3 trillion. “Congress is making America bankrupt,” Musk wrote.
The nonpartisan Congressional Finances Workplace has likewise concluded that whereas the invoice contains cuts to Medicaid, meals stamps and different security web packages, these reductions can be overwhelmed by the tax cuts and different provisions projected to extend the deficit by between $2.3 trillion and $5 trillion over the identical interval.
The Home narrowly handed the GOP tax and spending invoice final month by only one vote after weeks of tense negotiations between the White Home and Republican lawmakers involved about ballooning deficits. The bundle, dubbed by Trump as “One Large, Lovely Invoice,” extends his 2017 tax cuts, creates new tax breaks on ideas and time beyond regulation, and raises the federal debt ceiling by $4 trillion.
Musk posted his newest criticisms as White Home Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt was defending the invoice to reporters throughout a press briefing. She rapidly discovered herself responding to Musk’s view. “The President already is aware of the place Elon Musk stood on this invoice,” Leavitt mentioned. “It doesn’t change the President’s opinion.”
Home Speaker Mike Johnson additionally pushed again on Musk’s criticism, which he referred to as “disappointing” and “shocking.” “With all due respect, my good friend Elon is very fallacious in regards to the one massive, stunning invoice,” Johnson advised reporters.
However Musk’s rebuke has energized fiscal hawks within the Senate who had been already uneasy with the laws’s scope. Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican of Utah, responded on to Musk’s submit on Tuesday: “The Senate should make this invoice higher.” Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican of Kentucky, added: “I agree with Elon. We now have each seen the huge waste in authorities spending and we all know one other $5 trillion in debt is a large mistake. We will and should do higher.”
Within the Home, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, one of many few Republicans to vote in opposition to the measure within the Home, additionally responded to Musk: “He’s proper.”
Within the higher chamber, a number of Senate Republicans together with Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rick Scott of Florida, and Rand Paul of Kentucky, have referred to as for deeper spending cuts earlier than they may help the invoice. If the Senate amends the laws, it will be despatched again to the Home for an additional vote.
The invoice additionally contains provisions which have shocked and alarmed among the President’s staunchest allies. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, posted on X that she regretted voting for the invoice after discovering a piece—buried on pages 278 and 279—that she says strips states of the authority to manage synthetic intelligence for a decade. “I’m adamantly OPPOSED to this and it’s a violation of state rights,” she wrote. “I’d have voted NO if I had identified this was in there.”
Whereas Trump repeatedly praised Musk throughout his time within the Administration, studies of inside clashes and disagreements often spilled into public view. Musk beforehand criticized Trump’s protectionist commerce insurance policies and tariffs, and his time working for the federal government was met with uneven outcomes as he got here up properly in need of his objective of slashing $2 trillion from the federal price range.
