Elon Musk on Saturday doubled down on his distaste for President Donald Trump's sprawling tax and spending cuts bill, arguing the legislation that Republican senators are scrambling to pass would kill jobs and bog down burgeoning industries.
“The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country,” Musk wrote on X on Saturday ahead of a procedural Senate vote to open debate on the nearly 1,000-page bill. “It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future.”
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, whose birthday is also Saturday, later posted that the bill would be “political suicide for the Republican Party.”
In the wee hours of Saturday morning, GOP leaders released a new 940-page version of the legislation to carry out the president’s agenda. Like the House version, the bill would slash taxes, scale back Medicaid, cut nutritional assistance and increase spending on the military and immigration enforcement.
But the Senate also included some new measures intended to mollify holdouts in the Republican ranks, including a fund to help rural hospitals that depend on Medicaid. Leaders in the Republican majority are hoping to push the bill through the Senate and win final approval in the House before Trump’s deadline of July 4.
Trump and Musk are at odds over the controversial 'Big Beautiful Bill'. While Trump strongly supports it, Musk is leading the Opposition.
The bill was narrowly passed in the House of Representatives on May 22, with 215 votes in favour and 214 against. It is now awaiting approval in the Senate, where it must be passed by July 4, 2025.
Trump says the bill will boost domestic investment and reduce reliance on China, calling it a law “filled with patriotism.”
Musk has previously made his opinions about Trump's “big, beautiful bill” clear. Days after he left the federal government last month with a laudatory celebration in the Oval Office, he blasted the bill as “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination."
When Trump clapped back to say he was disappointed with Musk, back-and-forth fighting erupted and quickly escalated. Musk suggested without evidence that Trump, who spent the first part of the year as one of his closest allies, was mentioned in files related to sex abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
The war of words came as Musk was taking a step back from his role in the Trump administration to focus on his companies, which had been struggling. Though Trump said he had no interest in repairing their relationship, Musk said a week after their dispute that he regretted some of his posts and felt that he “went too far,” signaling a possible truce.
"I regret some of my posts about President @realDonaldTrump last week. They went too far," Musk said in a 3:04 a.m., June 11 post on X, without specifying which posts he was sorry about.
Trump responded in kind in an interview with The New York Post, saying, “Things like that happen. I don't blame him for anything.”
Musk has spent recent weeks focused on his businesses, and his political influence has waned since he left the administration. Still, the wealthy businessman poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Trump’s campaign in 2024, demonstrating the impact his money can have if he’s passionate enough about an issue or candidate to restart his political spending.
(With inputs from agencies)
