- Elon Musk has publicly criticized Donald Trump’s new spending bill, expressing disappointment that it would add $3.8 trillion to the federal deficit and undermine his efforts with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to reduce government spending. Musk, who had shifted focus back to Tesla after tensions with the administration, also lamented that DOGE had become a scapegoat for broader dissatisfaction, even as backlash against his cost-cutting measures has led to vandalism of Tesla property.
The cracks are well and truly beginning to show in the Elon Musk–Donald Trump partnership, after the Tesla CEO said he was “disappointed” by the president’s spending bill—the showpiece of Trump 2.0.
When Musk was brought in from campaign donor to White House special employee, he was tasked with cutting $2 trillion (since drastically reduced to $150 billion) from the federal deficit and streamlining government departments.
But now, four months after Trump returned to the Oval Office, Musk is already concerned his work with the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is being undone, courtesy of the “largest tax cut in history” being pushed through Congress by the Trump team.
Economists have flagged major concerns with Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill,” which extends his temporary 2017 cuts to lower individual income and estate taxes; grants a tax break for tips, overtime, and interest on auto loans, domestic research, and development expense incentives; and offers “Trump kids” savings accounts, plus a $46.5 billion package to restart immigration action.
Combined, the White House says, these policies will boost GDP by 2.6% to 3.2% in the long term and increase take-home pay for median-income households by $5,000 a year.
However, a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found the legislation would add $3.8 trillion to the deficit.
This is precisely where Musk has fallen out of love with Trump’s economic agenda, as it adds to the deficits of a nation already burdened with a $36.2 trillion debt bill.
“Disappointed”
“I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit,” Musk told CBS in a clip of an interview scheduled to be released June 1, adding it “undermines the work the DOGE team is doing.”
Indeed DOGE’s cuts—which often proved unpopular and led to Musk’s private interests being targeted by critics—were expected by the Tesla CEO to ax around $1 trillion in spending.
If Trump’s bill, in its current form, does get approved by Congress, then it is likely to rapidly wipe out the cost efficiencies that cost Musk and Tesla dearly.
“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Musk added. “But I don’t know if it can be both—personal opinion.”
The criticism comes as Musk has continued to step away from games of politics on the Hill and instead focus on the endeavors that made him the richest person on the planet. Already Musk had said he would be focused more on Tesla than his role in the Trump administration, a shift in tone following media reports that Trump had blocked the billionaire entrepreneur from high-profile national security meetings.
And while Musk is not in opposition to Trump more widely, this isn’t the first time the man worth $390 billion has criticized the strategy of the Oval Office.
Trump’s tariff agenda, for example, did not land well with Musk and began a back-and-forth between the South African–born billionaire and Trump advisor Peter Navarro.
The White House did not respond to Fortune‘s request for comment.
DOGE has become a “whipping boy”
Musk also lamented the reaction to DOGE’s work, saying the department has become the scapegoat for any gripes with the new administration.
“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he told the Washington Post in an interview released this morning. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”
One of the most explicit criticisms of DOGE was how it treated USAID, with fellow billionaires like Bill Gates saying cuts to foreign spending could result in the deaths of millions of children—a statement Musk denies but has promised to fix if it is confirmed to be true.
Such stories haven’t made Musk a popular figure with some voters, who expressed their rage by targeting the entrepreneur’s businesses. Tesla cars, showrooms, and charging points have been damaged beyond repair not only in the U.S. but also across Europe.
A couple of examples include Molotov cocktails being thrown at vehicles in Las Vegas, gunshots fired at a showroom in Portland, Ore., and charging points set on fire in Boston.
“People were burning Teslas. Why would you do that? That’s really uncool,” Musk told the WP.
