Elon Musk has publicly criticised Donald Trump’s tax bill, saying the US president’s spending plan undermines the cost-cutting efforts led by Tesla bosses.
The remarks by the billionaire businessman were made to CBS as part of a lengthy interview as they will be running in the program this weekend Sunday morning. In a preview posted on social media, Musk said “disappointing to see the massive spending bill that will increase the fiscal deficit and undermine the work the Doge team is doing.”
Musk has been “leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) since January. He later announced in April that he would retreat from the Trump administration after Tesla’s revenue plummeted, spending millions of dollars on the Supreme Court race that Republican candidates ultimately lost.
The mask now appears to be a hit with one big beautiful bill law of Trump. This was narrowly approved by the House of Representatives last week.
The bill promotes many Trump campaign promises, including extending tax cuts for individuals and businesses and ending the clean energy incentives enacted under Joe Biden.
Additionally, profit cuts aimed at supporting struggling households, including low-income households, Medicaid and Supplementary Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) food stamps include a cut of around $100 (£741 billion).
However, the bill also funds staff and facilities for the construction of walls along the border with Mexico, as well as the massive deportation of undocumented immigrants. According to the Non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, the bill is expected to add around 2.3 tons to the deficit, even when the cuts are taken into consideration.
Musk told CBS:
The comment burns rumors of a growing rift between the billionaire and the US president who Musk backed Bankroll last year. In total, Musk’s Super Political Action Committee donated $200 million to Trump’s presidential campaign before the November election.
Musk also has business benefits on Trump’s bill to end the $7,500 tax credit for electric vehicles and charge owners an annual registration fee of $250. Tesla bosses have previously sought an end to these incentives, a few months before the revenues of EV makers began to wobble.
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Last month, Tesla reported a 71% decline in first quarter profits to $49 million, compared to $1.399 billion for the same period in 2024. Tesla stocks have lost about a quarter of its market value since Musk took the top position in Trump’s administration at the beginning of the year.
Musk’s criticism is likely to encourage opposition by hardline Republicans who threatened to block Trump’s legislation when passing the US Senate, unless the president deploys deeper cuts to reduce national debt. One leading senator, Kentucky, Randpole, told Fox News on Sunday that the bill’s cuts were “Wimpy and Anemic” and “exploding debt.”
But Trump is already tracing politically sensitive territory by supporting bills that would significantly cut programs he has pledged to protect. He pledged multiple times last year on the campaign trails to avoid touching on basic safety nets, including Medicaid.
Some supporters of the president’s “Make America Great Again,” including former White House strategist Steve Bannon, have also warned against such a move, with one Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley saying cutting health insurance for working poor people would be “political suicide.”