President Donald Trump on Thursday said he was disappointed in Elon Musk’s criticism of Republicans’ tax cut package, which the billionaire called a “disgusting abomination” and has urged Congress to block.
“Well, look, you know, I’ve always liked Elon, and so I was very surprised, and you saw the words he had. He hasn’t said anything about me that’s bad. I’d rather have him criticize me than the bill, because the bill is incredible,” Trump said in a press availability at the White House alongside German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. “It’s the biggest cut in the history of our country.”
“Elon’s upset because we took the EV mandate… which was a lot of money for electric vehicles and, you know, they’re having a hard time, and they want us to pay billions of dollars in subsidies,” Trump said. “Elon knew this from the beginning, he knew it from a long time ago.”
Trump said he didn’t think Musk’s recommendation of a nominee to lead NASA was appropriate because the prospective candidate was a Democrat, so he can understand why Musk was upset.
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“Elon and I had a great relationship,” Trump said. “He said wonderful things about me, you couldn’t have nicer, said the best things. He’s worn that hat — Trump was right about everything — and I am right about the great big, beautiful bill. We call it a great, big, beautiful bill because that’s what it is.”
“Biggest tax cuts in history. Biggest economic development moves anywhere, we’ve never done anything like it,” the president added.
Trump also said Musk was aware of the bill’s provisions related to the EV mandate and incentives, saying, “Elon knew the inner workings of the bill better than anybody sitting here” and that he had “no problem with it” initially.
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“All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out we’re going to have to cut the EV mandate because that’s billions and billions of dollars,” the president said.
“It really is unfair, we want to have cars of all types. Electric — we want to have electric. But we want to have gasoline combustion, we want to have different — we want to have hybrids. We want to be able to sell everything,” he added.
“If you saw the statements he said about me, which I’m sure you can get very easily, it’s very fresh on tape, he said the most beautiful things about me. And he hasn’t said bad about me personally, but I’m sure that will be next. But I’m very disappointed in Elon, I’ve helped Elon a lot,” Trump said.
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Musk pushed back on Trump’s comments with a series of posts on his social media platform X, criticizing the contents of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
“Whatever. Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,” Musk wrote in a post on X. “In the entire history of civilization, there has never been legislation that both big and beautiful. Everyone knows this!”
“Either you get a big and ugly bill or a slim and beautiful bill. Slim and beautiful is the way,” he added.
Musk said he was left in the dark about the bill, disputing Trump’s statement that he was aware of its contents, writing on X: “False, this bill was never shown to me even once and was passed in the dead of night so fast that almost no one in Congress could even read it!”
The Tesla CEO said in a subsequent post that the president and Republicans wouldn’t be in power without his support in the last election and should be more appreciative.
“Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate,” Musk said in another post. “Such ingratitude.”
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