Elon Musk, the billionaire tech mogul who had a near-constant presence in the early weeks of President Donald Trump’s second-term administration, has expressed dissatisfaction with Trump’s legislative priority: a massive tax and spending package dubbed the “big, beautiful bill.”
[time-brightcove not-tgx=”true”]Like some Republican lawmakers, Musk criticized the megabill over how it would significantly raise the national debt. In a clip released Tuesday night of an exclusive interview with CBS that will air in full on Sunday, Musk said he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases.” He added that the bill “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
Musk spearheaded the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) that oversaw sweeping federal layoffs, agency shutdowns, and cancellations of government contracts—some of which have been challenged in court. Musk promised the initiative would save at least $1 trillion in federal spending, and DOGE’s website claims to have saved taxpayers an estimated $175 billion to date, though critics and factcheckers have cast doubt on the veracity of those figures.
Trump’s “big, beautiful bill,” however, would boost spending on areas like defense and border security and extend his first-term tax cuts, while imposing restrictions and slashing funding for clean energy, Medicaid, and other programs as well as triggering significant cuts to Medicare. Nonpartisan groups have estimated that the bill would add trillions of dollars to the national debt. The bill faced opposition from fiscal conservatives but ultimately passed in the House last week and is now before the Senate, where Republicans also hold a majority.
Amid calls from investors to spend more time focused on his businesses, Musk—who is the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, and the owner of social media platform X—said in a Tesla investor call in April that he would dial down his “time allocation” to DOGE beginning in May. He said that “the large slug of work necessary to get the DOGE team in place and working in the government to get the financial house in order is mostly done.”
Musk has insisted that he will maintain his role as senior adviser to the President, telling CNBC on May 20: “My rough plan on the White House is to be there for a couple days every few weeks. And to be helpful where I can be helpful.” But his regularity in Trump’s orbit has dropped off significantly, sparking rumors of a rift with the President. Politico published an analysis earlier this month that found that whereas Trump used to post almost daily about Musk on Truth Social, he hasn’t mentioned him at all in recent weeks. Also on May 20, Musk said that he would be cutting back his political spending, after sinking more than $250 million into Trump’s 2024 campaign. “I think I’ve done enough,” he told Bloomberg. “If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I don’t currently see a reason.”
It’s unclear if Musk’s new comments on Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” will affect its trajectory. A number of Republican Senators have also raised concerns about its bottom line. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin told CNN on Sunday that he thinks there are enough Senators who can stop the bill “until the President gets serious about spending reduction and reducing the deficit.” That same day, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky told Fox News: “I support spending cuts, I think the cuts currently in the bill are wimpy and anemic, but I still would support the bill even with wimpy and anemic cuts if they weren’t going to explode the debt. The problem is the math doesn’t add up.”
Musk summarized his “personal opinion” in the CBS interview clip, saying: “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. But I don’t know if it can be both.”
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