Elon Musk speaks during a press event with U.S. President Donald Trump (not pictured), at the White House in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 2025.
Nathan Howard | Reuters
Elon Musk on Tuesday tore into the massive tax-and-spending-cut bill backed by President Donald Trump, calling it a “disgusting abomination” that will explode federal budget deficits.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote in a post on X, his social media site.
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO added.
“Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” wrote Musk, who until last week led the Trump administration’s DOGE effort to cut government spending and waste.
Musk in a follow-up post wrote that the bill “will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt.”
The jibes came two days after CBS News aired an interview in which Musk said that the legislative package backed by the Republican president “undermines” DOGE.
The White House quickly shrugged off Musk’s latest criticism.
“Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said at a briefing Tuesday when asked about the initial post.
“It doesn’t change the President’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it,” Leavitt said.
Leavitt doubled down on the administration’s claim that it is “blatantly wrong” to say that the bill adds to the deficit.
She accused the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that the budget package would raise the deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next decade, of being biased against Republicans.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, who led the Republican caucus’s effort to pass the spending package through that chamber, told reporters, “With all due respect, my friend Elon is terribly wrong about the one big beautiful bill.”
Johnson, R-La., reiterated his defense of the bill in an X post, while also vowing that Congress would codify some of DOGE’s claimed government-spending cuts as part of a rescissions package.
But Musk, replying to an X post criticizing the GOP caucus, wrote, “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people.”
But some of Trump’s fellow Republicans agreed with Musk, among them Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky.
Massie, a fiscal hawk who was one of only two Republicans to vote against the House version of the bill, wrote, “He’s right,” in a response to Musk’s X post.
Musk replied to Massie: “Simple math.”
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, also backed Musk’s warning of the deficit being blown out.
“Congress has hollowed out America’s middle class through reckless deficit spending and the inflation it causes,” Lee wrote on X.
“The Uniparty propels this vicious cycle, and must be stopped in its tracks.”
Earlier Tuesday, Trump lashed out at Sen. Rand Paul when the Kentucky Republican criticized the bill’s provision to raise the debt ceiling by trillions of dollars.
Trump accused Paul of failing to understand that the bill would spur “tremendous GROWTH.”
Paul wrote on X later Tuesday, “I agree with Elon.”
“We have both seen the massive waste in government spending and we know another $5 trillion in debt is a huge mistake. We can and must do better,” the libertarian senator wrote.
Musk replied to Paul’s post with an American-flag emoji.
Musk was the biggest financial backer of Trump’s 2024 campaign, spending more than $250 million on that effort.
But while serving as head of DOGE he expressed opposition to Trump’s tariffs and butted heads with other administration officials, among them White House trade advisor Peter Navarro and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
