Donald Trump ally Elon Musk lambasted the president’s signature tax bill as a budget-busting “abomination” as Republican fiscal hawks stepped up criticism of the massive fiscal package,.
The tech titan’s public condemnation pits him against the president at a critical time as Trump is personally lobbying holdouts on the bill. The remarks could stiffen resistance and delay enactment of the tax cuts and debt ceiling increase, reports Bloomberg.
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” Musk wrote in a social media post. “Shame on those who voted for it.”
Musk attacked the legislation days after leaving a temporary assignment leading the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to cut federal spending. The Tesla Inc. chief executive officer’s high-profile role in the Trump administration eroded his business brand and sales of his company’s electric vehicles plunged.
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt brushed aside the criticism.
“The President already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill and he’s sticking to it,” she told reporters on Tuesday.
One Republican fiscal hawk, Senator Mike Lee of Utah, appeared to endorse Musk’s criticism, highlighting the risk that the tech leader’s public stance will complicate passage.
“The Senate must make this bill better,” Lee said in a response to Musk’s post.
House Speaker Mike Johnson called Musk’s criticism “very disappointing.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent backed the legislation.
“It’s one big beautiful bill,” he said after a meeting Tuesday with Senate Majority Leader John Thune.
The House-passed tax bill is forecast to bring down federal revenue by about $4 trillion over a decade, adding about $2.5 trillion to the federal deficit over the period even with hundreds of billions of dollars in cuts to safety-net programs such as Medicaid and food stamps.
The measure also would aggressively phase out Biden-era tax breaks for electric vehicle purchases and clean energy production, changes that Tesla has criticized.
“Abruptly ending the energy tax credits would threaten America’s energy independence and the reliability of our grid,” Tesla Energy, the company’s division focused on solar systems and batteries, wrote in a social media post. The message was later signal boosted by Musk himself.
•Photo of Elon Musk addressing US President Trump CNN
