The richest man in the world began his feud with the most powerful man in the world right in the middle of the news cycle. Elon Musk called the One Big Beautiful Bill, the vehicle for President Trump’s sprawling policy agenda, a “disgusting abomination.”
“The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” replied White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion.”
It could, however, change the timing.
When he broke ranks with the president, Musk gave conservative critics of the bill a bit more breathing room on Capitol Hill by interrupting the regular White House drumbeat to pass the legislation as soon as possible. “It is an invitation to lock-in even harder,” one senior Senate aide told RealClearPolitics. “Nobody can control him,” the aide added of Musk. “I don’t even think Trump can.”
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That means a headache for Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Republicans can only lose two votes and still pass the mega bill through reconciliation. At least half a dozen GOP senators have already registered their strong dissatisfaction with the version of the bill passed by the House. Moderates, like Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski, balk at changes to Medicaid. Fiscal conservatives, like Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky, complain that the bill explodes deficits.
Musk is in the latter camp.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote on X less than a week after leaving his post in the administration. He called the legislation “massive, outrageous, pork-filled,” arguing that it would “massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit” and that “Congress is making America bankrupt.”
It was a remarkable bit of criticism from a former White House official, especially after his much-celebrated crusade to cut waste, fraud, and abuse from the federal bureaucracy – to say nothing of the $280 million he spent helping to get Trump elected a second time. The president has not flamed Musk. For now. There was little daylight between the two during Trump’s first 100 days, a fact that led Sean Hannity of Fox News to remark during those early weeks that the pair was like “two brothers.”
Musk never had the same kind of bromance with Speaker Mike Johnson or Leader Thune. Both Republican leaders pushed back with Johnson telling reporters Musk was “flat wrong” about the deficit effects of the bill and Thune likening the Musk broadside to little more than “commentary.”
Fiscal hawks saw a new ally and were delighted as Musk amplified their concerns on X. “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,” Paul wrote on the social media website. “We can and must do better.”
Musk, despite his billions, doesn’t have a vote in the coming debate. He does have a megaphone, and he has adoring fans who now find themselves split between believing the richest man and the most powerful man in the world.
A second senior Senate aide doubted whether Musk could change the bill from afar. Not long ago, after all, he mounted a grassroots campaign to keep Thune from succeeding Sen. Mitch McConnell as GOP leader. That failed. The new criticism of legislation, the aide said, serves as a sort of shot in the arm to the conservative insurgents: “Elon can make them more comfortable disagreeing with Trump.”
Musk arrived in Washington as a political novice but a hot commodity on the right. Republicans on Capitol Hill rushed to take selfies with the eccentric billionaire entrepreneur early on, but he may have lost some of his shine after Democrats made him the face of the opposition. “DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he said during an interview with the Washington Post. “So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.” He shared similar sentiments in interviews with the New York Times and CBS News, outlets that Trump notably harbors a particular grudge against.
“I have long thought that Elon taking the blows and being the only conservative still in the room gave a permission structure for conservatives on the hill to push back against Trump,” said the leader of one prominent GOP grassroots operation, “but now I am not sure.” The operative noted that Musk lost favor in opinion polls even as he gained power. Notably, he tried to boost a conservative candidate in a race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in March, only to have that effort backfire.
His popularity may be waning with middle-of-the-road voters, the operative added, but that doesn’t mean he is wrong on the merits. The big, beautiful bill assumed 4.5% economic growth to reach cuts and savings, they said before adding, “That is insane. No one is telling the truth anymore. Except Elon.”
The White House insists that the bill would ultimately shrink the national debt. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, as well as several outside analysts, estimate that the tax and spend package would increase deficits by more than a trillion dollars.
A senior Senate aide said that the challenge for the White House is that Musk “obviously is not wrong. He is saying something that a lot of GOP folks believe, and it is building momentum.” Republicans may have miscalculated with Musk, the aide added, saying that the hope that the billionaire would play political operative permanently for Republicans was “always a fantasy.”
“It isn’t that he doesn’t understand politics, he just doesn’t care and can turn on a dime at any point,” the aide said of Musk. That unpredictably means breathing room for critics of the bill. If the richest man in the world can defy the president, some are starting to conclude, so can members of Congress. Or, that is, they can hold out long enough to try and change the bill to their liking.
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