Musk wades back into politics, slamming Trump's domestic policy bill
Mr Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had been relatively quiet since his blowup with the president in June. PHOTO: REUTERS
Mr Elon Musk waded back into the political fray on June 28, slamming a major domestic policy bill that Senate Republicans are scrambling to pass, just weeks after he ended a feud with President Donald Trump over the legislation.
In the wee hours of the morning on June 28, GOP leaders released a new 940-page version of the legislation to carry out the President's agenda.
Like the House version, the bill would slash taxes, scale back Medicaid, cut nutritional assistance and increase spending on the military and immigration enforcement.
But the Senate also included some new measures intended to mollify holdouts in the Republican ranks, including a fund to help rural hospitals that depend on Medicaid.
Leaders in the Republican majority are hoping to push the bill through the Senate and win final approval in the House before Mr Trump's deadline of July 4.
Mr Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had been relatively quiet since his blowup with the president in June, but as the Senate convened to discuss the package on the afternoon of June 28, he reentered the debate, calling the bill 'utterly insane and destructive' in a post on his social platform X.
'The latest Senate draft bill will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country!' he wrote.
The bill lies at the center of his earlier feud with the President. Mr Musk had said he believed that the package would significantly add to the national debt and would undermine the savings he claims were found by the Department of Government Efficiency, a federal government cost-cutting project he led.
He called the bill a 'disgusting abomination' that would make the country bankrupt.
The spat quickly became personal as both men unleashed a torrent of attacks at each other. Mr Musk suggested that Mr Trump was named in the government's files on Jeffrey Epstein, the financier and convicted sex offender who killed himself in jail while awaiting trial.
Mr Trump said that Mr Musk's 'crazy' behavior was linked to drug use.
The war of words came as Mr Musk was taking a step back from his role in the Trump administration to focus on his companies, which had been struggling.
Though Mr Trump said he had no interest in repairing their relationship, Mr Musk said a week after their dispute that he regretted some of his posts and felt that he 'went too far', signaling a possible truce.
It is unclear how much influence Mr Musk wields over the Senate and what, if any, impact his views will have on the passage of the legislation. But his recent comments criticising what Mr Trump calls his 'Big Beautiful Bill' certainly do not bode well for his relationship with the President. NY TIMES
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