New Delhi: Billionaire Elon Musk, known for his leadership of Tesla, SpaceX, and X, has expressed his disappointment over US President Donald Trump’s legislative push for a massive spending package. According to reports, the package includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks, and Musk is of the opinion that the move will only “increase the budget deficit”.
Musk, who recently stepped back from running the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), said, “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.” He added, “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”
While Musk is close to Trump and is the Senior Advisor to the President of the United States, he has voiced his dissatisfaction at Trump over the issue, and made the recent remarks during an interview with CBS News. He was referring to Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” that would fulfill the President’s vision for a new “Golden Age”.
It would be done by shrinking social safety net programmes to pay for a 10-year extension of his 2017 tax cuts. Also, the legislation seeks to increase spending regarding border security, roll back clean energy tax credits, and enforce Medicaid work requirements.
Last week, the House of Representatives passed the bill and it will now move to the Senate. The mammoth package passed with 215 votes to 214, after Republican leadership quelled a rebellion on the right flank of the party that threatened the passage of the bill.
The fiscal hawks in the Republican Party were skeptic about the legislation and said the US is moving toward bankruptcy. Independent analysts warned the legislation would increase the deficit by as much as $4 trillion over a decade.
However, the projections of the White House Council of Economic Advisers are hugely ambitious and well outside the mainstream consensus. As per the Council of Economic Advisers, the package will boost growth of up to 5.2 percent. Karoline Leavitt, White House Press Secretary has claimed the bill won’t increase the deficit, and through spending cuts would actually save $1.6 trillion.
