Trump and Musk trade barbs as rift over tax and spend bill erupts into open

 

Trump and Musk trade barbs as rift over tax and spend bill erupts into open

 

Tech boss has turned on his former ally, accusing him of ingratitude after he spent $300m to get Trump elected

 

Chris Stein in Washington

Thu 5 Jun 2025 16.27 EDT

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jun/05/elon-musk-trump-tax-bill

 

A public feud erupted between Donald Trump and Elon Musk on Thursday, with the president saying he was “very disappointed” by the former adviser’s opposition to his top legislative priority, and Musk firing back that Trump would not have won election without his financial support.

 

The falling-out came days after Musk had stepped down as head of Trump’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge) and then pivoted to attacking the “One Big Beautiful Bill”, which would extend tax cuts, fund beefed-up immigration enforcement and impose new work requirements for enrollees of federal safety net programs.

 

While the Tesla CEO has focused his complaints on the price tag of the bill, which the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimates will add $2.4tn to the deficit over the next decade, Trump accused him of turning against it because of provisions revoking incentives for consumers to purchase electric vehicles.

 

“I’m very disappointed in Elon. I’ve helped Elon a lot,” Trump said, adding that “he knew every aspect of this bill. He knew it better than almost anybody, and he never had a problem until right after he left.”

 

“Look, Elon and I had a great relationship. I don’t know if we will any more,” the president said.

 

Musk responded almost immediately on X, saying that the president’s comment was “false”, and “this bill was never shown to me even once”. He then pivoted to personal attacks on Trump, after praising him just days earlier in an Oval Office appearance to mark the end of his time leading Doge.

 

“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” he said, responding to a video of Trump’s remarks. “Such ingratitude.”

 

The tech boss’s criticism has become the latest obstacle facing the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which the House of Representatives approved last month by a single vote.

 

The Senate this week began considering the bill, not long after Musk commenced the barrage of tweets over its cost, which he warned would undo Doge’s efforts to save the government money by cancelling programs and pushing federal workers out of their jobs. Musk said he believed the initiative could reduce spending by $1tn, though its own dashboard shows it has saved less than 20% of that amount since Trump was inaugurated.

 

The House speaker, Mike Johnson, spent weeks negotiating with his fractious Republican majority to get the bill passed narrowly through his chamber, and on Wednesday said he had been trying to speak with Musk about his concerns. In an interview with Bloomberg TV on Thursday, he called the Tesla CEO “a good friend” and said the two had exchanged text messages ahead of a call he expected to take place that morning.

 

“I just want to make sure that he understands what I think everybody on Capitol Hill understands. This is not a spending bill, my friends, this is a a budget reconciliation bill. And what we’re doing here is delivering the America first agenda,” Johnson said.

 

“He seems pretty dug in right now, and I can’t quite understand the motivation behind it,” the speaker added.

 

It is unclear if the call took place. Later in the day, Musk publicly questioned Johnson’s resolve to cut government spending, prompting the speaker to reply that he “has always been a lifelong fiscal hawk”.

 

The Senate’s Republican leaders have shown no indication that they share Musk’s concerns. Instead, they are eyeing changes to some aspects of the measure that were the result of hard-fought negotiations in the House, and could throw its prospects of passage into jeopardy.

 

One issue that has reappeared is the deductibility of state and local tax (Salt) payments, which the tax bill passed under Trump in 2017 limited to $10,000 per household. House Republicans representing districts in Democratic-run states that have higher tax burdens managed to get a provision increasing the deduction to $40,000 into the One Big Beautiful Bill act.

 

But there are almost no Republican senators representing blue states. The majority leader, John Thune, said after a meeting with Trump on Wednesday that his lawmakers were not inclined to keep that provision as they negotiate the bill.

 

“We also start from a position that there really isn’t a single Republican senator who cares much about the Salt issue. It’s just not an issue that plays,” Thune said.

 

That could upset the balance of power in the House, where Republicans can lose no more than three votes on any bill that passes along party lines.