Elon Musk hit out at President Donald Trump’s “big, beautiful” tax and spending bill, posting on X that he “can’t stand” the legislation and describing it as a “disgusting abomination”.
The bill – which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and increased defence spending while also allowing the US government to borrow more money – was passed by the House of Representatives in May.
On X, Musk said those who voted for to pass the bill are “wrong”.
Musk had previously said the bill, one of Trump’s signature policies, was “disappointing”because he believed it undermined the cost-cutting work of the team he headed until recently, known as Doge.
Doge stands for Department of Government Efficiency, even though the team is not a cabinet-level agency.
The South African-born tech billionaire’s time in the Trump administration came to an end on 31 May, although Trump said that “he will, always, be with us, helping all the way”.
The bill in its current form has been estimated to increase the budget deficit – the difference between what the government spends and the revenue it receives – by approximately $600bn (£444bn) in the next fiscal year.
In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Musk said that the “outrageous, pork-filled” spending bill will “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America [sic] citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”
In American politics “pork” refers to spending measures that lawmakers tack onto legislation to narrowly benefit their constituencies.
Asked about Musk’s comments soon after the first post, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that “the President already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill”.
“This is one, big, beautiful bill,” she added. “And he’s sticking to it.”
The legislation also pledges to extend soon-to-expire tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration in 2017, as well as an influx of funds for defence spending and to fund the administration’s mass deportations of undocumented immigrants.
Additionally, it proposes lifting the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow, known as the debt ceiling, to $4tn.
The comments from Musk reflect wider tensions among Republicans over the plan, which faced stiff opposition from different wings of the party as it worked its way through the House. The Senate has now taken it up, and divisions already emerging in the Republican-controlled chamber.
Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, over the last few days has said he will not support the bill if it includes the provision to raise the debt ceiling.
“”The GOP [the Republican Party] will own the debt once they vote for this,” he told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, over the weekend.
Trump responded to Sen Paul with a series of angry social media posts, accusing him of having “very little understanding of the bill” and saying that the “people of Kentucky can’t stand him”.
“His ideas are actually crazy,” Trump wrote.
Trump and Republicans in Congress have set a deadline of 4 July to get the “big, beautiful bill” passed and signed into law.
Musk’s posts on the platform he owns also suggest he shares a rift with Trump, whom he helped get elected in last year’s November election with donations of more than $250m.
To make peace with spending hawks, Trump is also asking Congress to pass a plan that would reduce current spending by $9bn and which is reportedly based on Doge’s work.
By BBC News
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