WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was already at the briefing room lectern Tuesday when Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a special advisor to President Trump until just last week, launched into a scathing rebuke targeting his signature legislation.
“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.”
“Shame on those who voted for it,” he added. “You know you did wrong. You know it.”
It was the latest, sharpest critique of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” making its way through Congress from Musk, who ended his tenure as a special government employee last week despite his efforts to stay on, according to an Axios report.
In a CBS interview aired last week, Musk also called the bill a disappointment. “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” he said, “but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”
The Trump administration had already been on defense over the future of the bill, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates would result in a $3.8-trillion increase to the national debt over 10 years.
House Republicans approved the measure in late May. But multiple Republicans in the Senate, where the party holds a slim majority, have balked at its effects on the deficit, as well as several major proposals in the legislation that would result in millions of Americans losing access to Medicaid coverage.
One GOP senator, Joni Ernst of Iowa, drew national criticism over the weekend after responding to constituent concerns regarding Medicaid cuts at a town hall last week by saying, “well, we are all going to die.” The exchange put threats to Medicaid in the legislation back in the headlines, forcing the White House to put out a press release on Monday with the subject line: “MYTHBUSTER: No, People Will Not ‘Literally Die’ with the One Big Beautiful Bill.”
“The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” Leavitt said at the briefing, asked to respond to Musk’s X post. “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion.”
The bill would also cut clean energy tax credits passed during the Biden administration, which have benefited Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla.
Trump has also bucked Musk on other matters in recent days. Despite Musk’s opposition, Trump brokered an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to build the largest artificial intelligence campus outside of the United States with the backing of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, a Musk rival.
The president also withdrew Jared Isaacman, reportedly an ally of Musk, as his nominee for NASA administrator. Musk’s rocket ship company, SpaceX, relies heavily on government contracts.