House energy chair: Musk ‘never mentioned' megabill on day of vote
Elon Musk now says he considers the GOP mega budget reconciliation bill an "abomination." But he never brought up those objections during a breakfast just hours after the House passed the measure, House Energy and Commerce Chair Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said Tuesday.
"I went directly from that vote straight to a breakfast with Elon, and he never mentioned the bill that morning," Guthrie said during POLITICO's annual Energy Summit in Washington.
Instead, he said, Musk's big obsessions included competition with China to dominate artificial intelligence.
Guthrie's comments landed just a week after Musk began attacking President Donald Trump's 'big beautiful bill,' calling it "a disgusting abomination" for increasing the deficit. Musk — who has exited the federal government after leading Trump's Department of Government Efficiency — traded back-and-forth attacks with Trump last week.
But Guthrie, who played a key role in crafting the health care, technology and energy portions of the legislation, said Tuesday that he met with Musk the day the bill passed alongside his fellow committee Republicans.
"He talked about AI, he talked about all this stuff that [was] energy," Guthrie said. "Never mentioned the bill. And the bill had just been voted."
Guthrie also addressed Musk's suggestions that the mega-billionaire, who spent more than $200 million backing Trump's White House run last year, could fund campaigns to primary Republicans who backed the legislation.
"I assume that if he chooses somebody to primary, President Trump would probably take the opposite side, and in my district ... if I had that problem, I think President Trump would be a good person to come campaign in my district," the Kentucky Republican said.
Still, Guthrie emphasized Musk's "good insights" on energy and AI and noted that lawmakers will need input from Silicon Valley and other technology companies on the topics.
"We're going to have federal guardrails, and it's good to have the input from those people, and we want that input, but we as members of Congress representing our districts have to take their input — what allows them to grow their companies, allows us to compete, allows us to win — [and] at the same time, protects the American people and their use of data and privacy," he said.
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