'Silence is deafening': Insider flags Trump's lack of response to major critique
A veteran Florida reporter said he was bracing for president Donald Trump's inevitable response to Elon Musk's sharp criticism of his legislative priority.
The tech billionaire described Trump's sought-after "big beautiful bill" as a "disgusting abomination," saying it would explode the deficit, and Axios reporter Marc Caputo, who is well-sourced in Trumpworld, told "CNN News Central" that the president and Musk remain friends and allies, but their relationship has grown somewhat strained.
"There's sort of four inflection points that have troubled Musk over the months that this bill has been debated, and also that he has been in the administration," Caputo said. "One, electric vehicle tax credits and favorable treatment for them. Obviously, he owns Tesla. Two, FAA contract for the air traffic control system in the nation for Starlink. Three, the special government employee status of his, which has expired. We're told by those who had spoken to him that Musk wanted to continue in sort of a special government advisory role, and then the last one in the most recent one was Trump's decision on Saturday night to cancel the nomination for NASA administrator of a friend of Musk's named Jared Isaacman."
"After that story came out, there was a lot of chatter in and around the White House that some White House officials had actually canceled it as an F-you, I'm quoting someone to Elon Musk now," Caputo said. "Those people have denied it, but nevertheless, that's all been floating around, and what happened after that cancellation of the NASA administrator was Musk's statements about the bill became much more harsh, and suddenly he had this 'Paul on the road to Damascus' moment, where the scales fell from his eyes and he said he could no longer be quiet. But from what we understand behind the scenes, he was rather vocal, but he just wasn't getting what he wanted."
Host John Berman noted how harsh and unsubtle Musk's criticism was, and he said the president had almost no choice but to respond somehow.
"Trump's silence is notable," Caputo agreed. "It's sort of deafening. Generally, Donald Trump is not known as an impulse control guy. From what I understand, when he was informed of this and shown the post on X from Elon Musk, the president didn't quite roll his eyes, but that was sort of the sense like, 'Oh, you know, he's upset, and so be it.'"
"So far, and this could change, Trump is handling this in a very delicate way," Caputo added. "Whether Trump escalates that and what or whether Musk escalates that, or Trump eventually decides to break his silence, what he says, we're going to see. But I can't imagine that Trump is going to go too long without being in front of the cameras, and once he's in front of the cameras, he's going to say something."
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