WASHINGTON (AP) — Elon Musk on Saturday doubled down on his distaste for President Donald Trump’s sprawling tax and spending cuts invoice, arguing the legislation that Republican senators are scrambling to move would kill jobs and bathroom down burgeoning industries.
“The most recent Senate draft invoice will destroy tens of millions of jobs in America and trigger immense strategic hurt to our nation,” Musk wrote on X on Saturday forward of a procedural Senate vote to open debate on the practically 1,000-page invoice. “It offers handouts to industries of the previous whereas severely damaging industries of the long run.”
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO, whose birthday can also be Saturday, later posted that the invoice could be “political suicide for the Republican Party.”
The criticisms reopen a current fiery battle between the previous head of the Division of Authorities Effectivity and the administration he just lately left. In addition they symbolize yet one more headache for Republican Senate leaders who’ve spent the weekend working overtime to get the laws by their chamber so it could possibly move by Trump’s Fourth of July deadline.
Musk has beforehand made his opinions about Trump’s “massive, lovely invoice” clear. Days after he left the federal authorities final month with a laudatory celebration within the Oval Workplace, he blasted the invoice as “pork-filled” and a “disgusting abomination.”
“Disgrace on those that voted for it: you already know you probably did unsuitable. You recognize it,” he wrote on X earlier this month. In one other put up, the rich GOP donor who had just lately forecasted that he’d step again from political donations threatened to fireplace lawmakers who “betrayed the American folks.”
When Trump clapped again to say he was upset with Musk, back-and-forth preventing erupted and quickly escalated. Musk urged with out proof that Trump, who spent the primary a part of the 12 months as certainly one of his closest allies, was talked about in recordsdata associated to intercourse abuser Jeffrey Epstein.
Musk in the end tried to make nice with the administration, saying he regretted a few of his posts that “went too far.” Trump responded in sort in an interview with The New York Submit, saying, “Issues like that occur. I don’t blame him for something.”
It’s unclear how Musk’s newest broadsides will affect the delicate peace he and the president had loved in current weeks. The White Home didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
Musk has spent current weeks centered on his companies, and his political affect has waned since he left the administration. Nonetheless, the rich businessman poured a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} into Trump’s marketing campaign in 2024, demonstrating the impression his cash can have if he’s passionate sufficient about a difficulty or candidate to restart his political spending.
Although he was silent on Musk, Trump laid on strain and lashed out strongly at Republican holdouts within the Senate as lawmakers spent hours taking a procedural vote throughout a uncommon Saturday night session. He accused Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina of looking for publicity along with his no vote and threatened to marketing campaign in opposition to the senator’s reelection.
The laws narrowly cleared its check vote within the Senate late Saturday night, permitting senators to start debate.
