WASHINGTON (TNND) — Billionaire Elon Musk, once a prominent figure in President Donald Trump’s circle, has publicly criticized one of the administration’s key legislative priorities, the so-called “big beautiful bill.” Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, expressed his disapproval of the bill, which carries a hefty estimated price tag of $2 to $4 trillion while also raising the nation’s debt ceiling by another $4 trillion.
“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both,” Musk told CBS Sunday Morning in a clip released this week.
The bill includes many of the President’s domestic agenda priorities, including extending his 2017 tax cuts, adding money for defense spending, and extra money and resources for immigration and deportation.
“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decreases it, and undermines the work DOGE is doing,” Musk said in the clip.
Musk’s remarks come after he distanced himself from government work following backlash against the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been rapidly cutting staff, programs, and entire agencies since its establishment earlier this year. Despite the criticism, Musk defended DOGE’s efforts in a separate interview with the Washington Post, acknowledging the challenges of reducing bureaucracy and describing DOGE as “the whipping boy for everything” in Washington.
President Trump was asked about Musk’s comments Wednesday.
“My reaction’s a lot of things, number one, we have to get a lot of votes. We can’t be cutting—we need to get a lot of support and we have a lot of support,” he said.
The bill narrowly passed the House last week, but concerns from Republican Senators about the potential increase in national debt could hinder its progress.
“I think we have enough to stop the process until the president gets serious about the spending reduction and reducing the deficit,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., told CNN over the weekend. Johnson is one of a handful of Republican Senators who have been critical of the bill being sent to the Senate from the House.
Congressman Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, reposted Musk’s comments, writing in part, “Hopefully, the Senate will succeed with the Big Beautiful Bill where the House missed the moment.” Davidson was one of two GOP “no” votes against the bill that passed out of the House chamber.
House Speaker Mike Johnson praised DOGE’s work in a tweet and proposed making its cuts permanent, though he noted that such measures would need to be addressed through different budget processes, separate from the reconciliation package of the “big beautiful bill.”
