Bromance over? Elon Musk calls Trump's ‘Big Beautiful Bill' wasteful
Elon Musk criticized President Trump's sprawling One Big Beautiful BIll as wasteful in a new interview on Wednesday amid signs the epic bromance between the man in the White House and the world's richest man is fading.
The Tesla and SpaceX mogul derided Trump's signature budget package of tax and spending cuts, which narrowly passed in the House of Representatives, for undermining the cost-cutting effort of his Department of Government Efficiency.
'I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit… and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,' Musk said in the sit down with CBS News.
'I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both,' he added. 'My personal opinion.'
Trump did not immediately respond to the remarks from the billionaire first buddy. The interview will air in full on the CBS Sunday Morning show.
Musk said the bill includes far too much spending and too few cuts. It slashes Medicaid but also includes new outlays for border security and Trump's Golden Dome missile shield, among other political sweeteners.
The controversial measure, which Republicans still need to ram through the Senate on a party-line vote, extends and expands Trump's 2017 tax cuts, increasing the deficit by $3.8 trillion by 2034, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
The bill is taking heat from warring GOP factions. Fiscal hawks have slammed it for failing to rein in federal spending, while populists like onetime Trump whisperer Steve Bannon have suggested the cuts could prove damaging with working-class voters.
Musk also complained that his budget-slashing crusade has made him a lightning rod for public criticism, he told the Washington Post in a separate interview published Wednesday.
'DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,' he said. 'So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.'
He lashed out at critics for taking their political opposition out on his companies.
'People were burning Teslas,' Musk said. 'Why would you do that? That's really uncool.'
Musk's criticism comes as his relationship with Trump appears to be dramatically cooling.
He was a ubiquitous figure by Trump's side during the transition period and Trump's first weeks back in the White House.
In recent weeks, Musk has mostly returned to his day job running his companies, which have been battered as consumers recoil from his highly public right-wing political stands. Trump has barely mentioned him on social media after previously name-checking him on a daily basis.
Musk recently said he plans to pull back on his political spending, which helped catapult Trump back to the White House.
'I think I've done enough,' the billionaire said in a frank interview.
It's unclear if Trump has decided to put some distance between himself and Musk.
Polls say the world's richest man is widely unpopular with American voters, who disapprove of his harsh budget cuts, including dismantling entire federal agencies that were funded by Congress.
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