While the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” the vast tax and budget reform championed by Trump, has just been narrowly adopted in the House of Representatives, the Tesla and SpaceX boss has publicly expressed his disappointment. In an interview with CBS, Musk openly criticizes a project that, according to him, compromises the budget rationalization efforts undertaken for several years.
Until recently at the head of DOGE, the Department of Government Efficiency, a structure initiated by Trump himself during his second term to rationalize government spending, Elon Musk does not hide his annoyance: "I was disappointed to see this massive bill, frankly, that increases the budget deficit and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing." An exit that marks a clear break, while Musk had been a major supporter of the 2024 presidential campaign, injecting nearly $300 million into Trump's reelection efforts.
The bill, emphatically dubbed the "One Big Beautiful Bill," includes an extension of the 2017 tax cuts, a significant increase in military and security spending, particularly at the border, but also deep cuts in several social areas: renewable energy, Medicaid, Medicare, among others. According to independent projections, this reform could increase the federal debt by more than $3.3 trillion over the next decade.
For Musk, the count is not there
He who, at the head of DOGE, had promised more than $2 trillion in savings through agency cuts, staff reductions, and an overhaul of public spending, now sees these ambitions undermined by a reform deemed too wasteful. Economists, however, remain cautious about DOGE's real results, believing that the concrete savings remain far from the initial announcements.
This distancing from Elon Musk, now focused on his businesses and having announced a significant decline in his political contributions, illustrates a shift in relations between the two men. A fracture also revealing growing tension in the American conservative camp, torn between budgetary orthodoxy and stimulus through spending.
It remains to be seen whether this frontal opposition will weigh in the upcoming political debate. Because while Musk's stature in tech and the economy is no longer in doubt, his influence in the political sphere could be redefined by this turnaround. One thing is certain: the Trump-Musk alliance, once presented as a disruptive tandem, seems to have run its course!
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