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Elon Musk’s diatribe against President Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill” continued Wednesday as Senate Republicans embarked on their own course to tweak and reshape the gargantuan legislative package.
The former head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) rehashed a similar talking point from his takedown of a previous House GOP government funding bill in December, which, after his input, was gutted and reworked.
The nation’s debt sits at over $36 trillion, according to FOX Business’ National Debt Tracker.
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“Call your Senator, Call your Congressman,” Musk said among a flurry of posts on X. “Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.”
Though Musk’s continued tirade against the bill sent House Republicans into a tizzy, on the other side of the Capitol, senators were busy hashing out the finer points of the legislation.
This time around, Musk, who just ended his four-month tenure as a special government employee rooting out waste, fraud and abuse, may not have the same level of impact, given that senators want their chance to shape the bill.
“I mean, if Elon was going to give me advice on how to get to the moon, I’d listen,” said Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. “You know, if he was going to give me advice on how to raise several billion dollars from other billionaires, I’d listen.”
“But… he doesn’t govern, you know, and so, to be honest, Elon, he’s not that big a factor,” he continued. “I know he’s a glamorous sort of celebrity, but he’s not a big factor.”
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Cramer’s comments came after Senate Republicans heard from the chairs of the Senate Banking, Armed Services and Commerce committees on how they would approach their respective portions of the megabill in a closed-door meeting.
After that meeting, members of the Senate Finance Committee, which will handle the tax portion of the package, met with Trump later to shore up support for the tax package.
Sen. Roger Marshall, R.-Kan., said that the president’s main message during the meeting was to “pass the damn bill” with as few changes as possible. When asked if Trump seemed concerned about Musk’s impact on the bill’s fate, the lawmaker said “absolutely not.”
“It was almost laugh— more of a laughing conversation for 30 seconds,” he said. “It was very much in jest and laughing, and I think he said something positive about Elon, appreciating what he did for the country.”
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Congressional Republicans intend to use the budget reconciliation process to skirt the Senate filibuster, meaning they do not need Senate Democrats to pass the package. However, they do need at least 51 Senate Republicans to get on board.
The Senate’s shot at tinkering with the reconciliation package comes after months of deliberations and negotiations in the House that culminated in a package that Trump has thrown his full support behind.
Some lawmakers want higher spending cuts to the tune of $2 trillion, others want a full rollback to pre-pandemic spending. Then there are pockets of resistance solidifying around cuts to Medicaid and green energy tax credit provisions baked into the House’s offering.
Among the green energy provisions on the chopping block are electric vehicle tax credits. Speculation has swirled that their proposed demise could be the driving force, in part, behind Musk’s anger toward the bill.
“Any senator with a brain sees Elon’s comments for what they are, a CEO worried about losing business,” a Senate Republican source told Fox News Digital. “The only reason he’s causing a fuss is because we’re getting rid of pork that benefits his electric car company.”
Musk had been pushing for deeper spending cuts until his new demand that the bill be nuked. Currently, the House GOP’s offering sets a goal of $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade that, coupled with expected growth, would help offset the roughly $4 trillion price tag of making the president’s first-term tax cuts permanent.
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, engaged with some of Musk’s posts on Tuesday and appeared to agree with the tech billionaire’s position that the bill had to go further to cut spending.
“I think most of what he’s saying is he would like it to do more and be more aggressive to try to address the debt and deficit problem,” Lee said.
However, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office found in its latest report that the bill would only cut $1.3 trillion, reduce revenues by roughly $3.7 trillion and add in the neighborhood of $2.4 trillion to the deficit.
Some lawmakers who had found common ground with Musk’s earlier anger with the “big, beautiful bill” still found a common ally on the second day of his rant.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., reiterated to Fox News Digital that he shared Musk’s “skepticism” of the bill. He would not say whether he agreed that congressional Republicans should start from scratch, but noted that his main objection to the bill was a plan to increase the nation’s debt limit by $5 trillion.
“My main goal is to say, take the debt ceiling and make it a separate vote, and then vote on a separate bill, and then there’s still a need for less spending,” he said. “But I would be very open to supporting the bill if we had more spending cuts and the debt ceiling was a separate vote.”
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