'KILL BILL': Elon Musk's conservative evolution puts him at odds with Trump on key legislation

Fox News

6 days ago

Tech tycoon and former DOGE chief Elon Musk's political evolution has shifted to the right after he jumped into the election fray as a staunch ally of President Donald Trump on the campaign trail and ultimately as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk's conservative genesis on the public stage has put him at odds with the president as he rails against the One Big Beautiful Bill, which Trump has touted as legislation that would translate into big tax breaks for Americans across the pay brackets and subsequently called on Republican lawmakers to swiftly pass it.
Musk, who is considered America's wealthiest resident, is publicly criticizing the sweeping legislation just days after his departure from DOGE and the federal government. The "big beautiful bill" is currently making its way through the Senate and would fund Trump's agenda, including strengthening border policies and ending taxes on overtime and tips.
"I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore," Musk posted to X Tuesday. "This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it."
He added the next day that the bill's "immense level of overspending will drive America into debt slavery!" This was followed by a stream of X posts calling on Americans to encourage their lawmakers to "kill the bill" as well as a "KILL BILL" meme of the 2003 movie with the same name.
Musk has found himself aligned with members of the House Freedom Caucus, which is considered the most conservative voting bloc within the lower chamber, as well as staunch fiscal conservatives in the Senate, such as Republican Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul and Wisconsin Sen. Ron. Johnson, who have publicly rebuked the legislation.
Paul said Monday that its potential passage would increase the debt ceiling by $5 trillion, calling the bill a "terrible idea" that bucks conservative ideas.
The national debt currently stands at about $36 trillion. The Congressional Budget Office, an independent government agency, published a June report that the bill would increase the deficit by $2.4 trillion throughout the next decade.
"I want the tax cuts to be permanent. But at the same time, I don't wanna raise the debt ceiling five trillion," Paul told CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "The GOP will own the debt once they vote for this."
Trump has admonished the criticism from fiscally conservative Republicans, arguing that Paul, for example, was on the verge of siding with the "Radical Left Democrats" and encouraging a 68% tax hike on Americans if he votes against the legislation.
"Rand will be playing right into the hands of the Democrats, and the GREAT people of Kentucky will never forgive him! The GROWTH we are experiencing, plus some cost cutting later on, will solve ALL problems. America will be greater than ever before!" Trump posted to Truth Social Saturday of Paul.
Musk, in an earlier public rebuke of the bill, remarked that he was "disappointed" it passed the House in May as it "undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said Tuesday that Trump is aware of Musk's views on the bill, but that the legislation still has the president's full endorsement, when asked by Fox News' Peter Doocy about Musk's X post claiming the bill was a "disgusting abomination."
"The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill," Leavitt said. "It doesn't change the president's opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill and he's sticking to it."
Leavitt also pushed back in the briefing Tuesday that the Congressional Budget Office's prognostication for the bill is likely wrong, citing a history of missing the mark on budget predictions.
"The Congressional Budget Office has been historically wrong," Leavitt said. "In fact, they predicted the Trump tax cuts from the president's first term in 2017. Their prediction was wrong by half a trillion. Those tax cuts had nearly a half trillion dollars more of revenue than the Congressional Budget Office scored. And I would also point out, I don't think many people know this, there hasn't been a single staffer in the entire Congressional Budget Office that has contributed to a Republican since the year 2000. But guess what? There have been many staffers within the Congressional Budget Office who have contributed to Democrat candidates and politicians every single cycle."
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., also slammed the report for employing static scoring as opposed to dynamic scoring, which in "layman's terms is they don't give us any credit for the extraordinary economic growth that will be spurred along by this bill."
Static scoring evaluates the fiscal impact of a policy change without considering how the change will affect the economy overall, while dynamic scoring broadens the scope of a study to include how a policy change would affect the economy.
A White House official told Fox News Digital that Musk and Trump have historically seen eye-to-eye on political issues more than they differ, adding they continue to share many political views when asked if Musk has gone further to the right than Trump since his work within the administration.
Trump spoke publicly about Musk's criticisms Thursday from the Oval Office during a meeting with the chancellor of Germany, remarking he was "disappointed" with Musk's rebukes.
"I'm very disappointed, because Elon knew the inner workings of this bill better than almost anybody sitting here, better than you people," Trump said in the Oval Office. "He knew everything about it. He had no problem with it. All of a sudden he had a problem, and he only developed the problem when he found out that we're going to have to cut the EV mandate, because that's billions and billions of dollars, and it really is unfair."
"Elon and I had a great relationship," Trump added. "I don't know if we will anymore."
Musk's leadership of DOGE came to an official end May 28 as his time as a special government employee ran dry of its 130 predetermined days. While in the role, Musk became a common target of liberal ire as he led efforts to remove fraud, corruption and overspending from federal departments and agencies across the government, which included cutting government programs and mass layoffs.
All in, the Department of Government Efficiency touts that it has saved an estimated $180 billion through initiatives such as grant or contract cancellations, workforce reductions or stamping out fraud. Musk's efforts on DOGE have been celebrated by conservatives and Republicans, who frequently campaign on cutting government fat.
"It is time to cut red tape, hold the unchecked federal workforce accountable, ensure programs are efficient, & work with @DOGE to tackle waste, fraud, & abuse," House Oversight Chair James Comer, R-Ky., Comer posted on X in December 2024 ahead of DOGE's official launch.
"Iowans elected me with a mandate to cut Washington's pork!" Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, said in December 2024. "From billion-dollar boondoggles to welfare for politicians and trillion-dollar slush funds, my decade-long investigations have exposed levels of abuse that are almost too insane to believe."
The tech billionaire behind Tesla and Space X previously described himself as a Democrat and centrist before making a public political shift to the right amid Trump's run for the presidency and inauguration – including repeatedly taking stances that fall in line with conservative ideology.
Musk endorsed Trump for the presidency in July 2024, after Trump faced his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. He later joined the political fray through campaign events promoting Trump's candidacy in key battleground states.
Before Trump's win, Musk railed from the campaign trail that the federal government had become bloated with overspending and red tape that he said hampers private sector innovation.
"Tomorrow, I will tell the story of how SpaceX was forced by the government to kidnap seals, put earphones on them and play sonic boom sounds to see if they seemed upset," Musk posted to X in October 2024, teasing he would elaborate on his government overregulation experiences from a campaign event.
Trump touted during the election cycle that Musk would likely serve as his "Secretary of Cost-Cutting" if he won re-election, teeing up fanfare around Musk's anticipated efforts to take a hatchet to the federal government's budget.
Musk's political evolution, most notably when it comes to fiscal issues, followed the tech tycoon touting in 2018 on X, "True socialism seeks greatest good for all."
He added in 2020 that "socially," he is "very liberal," continuing that he is "economically right of center, maybe, or center," the New York Times previously reported.
In addition to slamming the "big beautiful bill" in recent days, Musk has posted a handful of X messages celebrating free market champion Milton Friedman and beloved conservative economist Thomas Sowell.
As Trump's tariff policies were rolled out in April, Musk posted a video clip of Friedman explaining that an item as simple as a pencil is the result of free market economics and supply chains across the world. Musk shared the video with no caption.
"Literally thousands of people cooperated to make this pencil," Friedman, who died in 2006, was seen saying in the video. "People who don't speak the same language, who practice different religions, who might hate one another if they ever met. When you go down the store and buy this pencil, you are, in effect, trading a few minutes of your time for a few seconds of the time of all those thousands of people."
"The operation of the free market is so essential, not only to promote productive efficiency, but even more to foster harmony and peace among the peoples of the world," he said.
Musk also recently shared a quote from Sowell on the history of slavery in the U.S.
"It's one of many evils that the Left tries to localize when it's a universal evil,'" Sowell was seen saying in a video post on X that was reshared by Musk on Jan. 11 with the caption "True."
Musk also doubled down on strong endorsements of the Second Amendment while on the campaign trail, posting on X in October 2024 that "tyrannical government" works to take guns from citizens in an effort to snuff out free speech.
"The right to bear arms is there to protect free speech and stop a tyrannical government from taking your rights away! That's why the first thing that all tyrants do is disarm the people, just like Chavez did when he was first elected. After that, no more real elections in Venezuela," Musk posted to his X account in October 2024.
Musk had previously praised America's Second Amendment, including in 2022 when he said he "strongly (believes) that the right to bear arms is an important safeguard against potential tyranny of government."
His comments while on the campaign trail rallying support for Trump, however, found renewed praise among conservatives in 2024 as they found additional common ground with the tech billionaire.
DOGE is still operating following Musk's departure. The temporary cross-departmental organization will be dissolved on July 4, 2026, according to Trump's executive order that established the organization in January.