Elon Musk Goes To War Against Big Beautiful Bill: 'KILL the BILL'
WASHINGTON ― Former White House adviser Elon Musk escalated his attacks on the big Republican bill cutting taxes and Medicaid, urging Americans to call their lawmakers to kill the bill.
“Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL,” Musk wrote on his social media platform Wednesday.
The legislation is supposed to encompass the entirety of President Donald Trump’s domestic policy agenda for his second term, so Musk’s aggressive opposition, just one week after leaving his job as a senior adviser to the president, is striking.
A senior White House official told The Wall Street Journal Trump is “losing patience” with Musk and “confused” as to why the Tesla CEO is savaging his biggest legislative priority.
The billionaire entrepreneur ramped up his attacks on the legislation starting Tuesday, saying Republicans should be ashamed to vote for it. House Speaker Mike Johnson (Republican, Louisana) said he was blindsided by Musk’s change of tone after they’d had a cordial conversation on Monday.
“I called Elon last night and he didn’t answer, but I hope to talk to him today,” Johnson said, adding that he’s spoken to the president about the situation.
“He’s not delighted that Elon did a 180 on that,” Johnson said. “But look, I don’t know what happened in 24 hours. Everybody can draw their own conclusions about that.”
Musk responded to Johnson with more posts on X on Wednesday, saying there should be a new bill before more directly saying the current bill should be killed.
The legislation combines more than $4 trillion in tax cuts and new spending with less than $2 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other social programs, for a net deficit of $2.4 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The deficits would be even wider counting interest expenses, and the likelihood a future Congress would extend several tax cuts is currently written as temporary in the bill.
“A new spending bill should be drafted that doesn’t massively grow the deficit and increase the debt ceiling by 5 TRILLION DOLLARS,” Musk posted on Wednesday.
Several House Republicans who voted for the legislation told HuffPost they didn’t think Musk’s opposition would sway them when it comes time for a final vote after the Senate makes changes. But Representative Thomas Massie (Republican, Kentucky) who voted against the bill because of deficit concerns, said Musk has already altered the dynamics on Capitol Hill since the speaker is doing “damage control” addressing Musk’s remarks.
“I mean, the public trusts a man who can land rockets backwards and get their cars to drive themselves way more than they trust these ― these people up here,” Massie told HuffPost.
The House passed the bill last month, and the Senate is expected to pass its version this month. It’s not clear how the breakup between Musk and Republican leaders will affect the bill’s prospects, but there does appear to be a messy breakup going on.
“I have all the respect in the world for Elon, all the respect world for him,” Sen. Markwayne Mullin (Republican, Oklahoma) told HuffPost. “I also love my wife, and every now and then my wife and I disagree, and so sometimes people just have disagreements.”
Igor Bobic contributed reporting.