Republicans fume as Elon Musk complicates tax bill path
The implosion of billionaire Elon Musk’s relationship with President Donald Trump has not just turned into a political headache for congressional Republicans — it has also frustrated their efforts to deliver on the president’s agenda.
The fight between the Republican Party’s two most important figures, triggered by Musk’s open disdain for the price tag of Trump’s signature legislation, reopened a fault line in the GOP between the party’s fiscal hawks and those who have embraced Trump’s populist promises not to touch Medicare or Social Security.
“I don’t argue with him on how to build rockets,” House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) said Friday of Musk, on CNBC. “And I wish he wouldn’t argue with me on how to craft legislation and pass it.”
Neither Trump nor Musk publicly worked to de-escalate tensions Friday as many Republicans appeared to rally to the president’s side, expressing loyalty to him and hope for a détente as the feud continued to consume the party. In brief interviews, Trump and his representatives attempted to shift the focus to his signature tax and immigration bill. Still, Trump was not done criticizing Musk, in one interview calling him “the man who has lost his mind.”
“I’m not even thinking about Elon. He’s got a problem. The poor guy’s got a problem,” Trump told CNN on Friday morning , adding that he would not “be speaking to [Musk] for a while I guess, but I wish him well.”
Republican lawmakers in the early months of Trump’s second term expected Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service to deliver spending cuts that would help offset their plans for a budget-busting tax package. But with DOGE, which stands for Department of Government Efficiency, returning only a small fraction of the cuts initially contemplated by the billionaire Tesla founder, Republicans are left defending an overall agenda that appears on track to add as much as $3 trillion to the national debt.
Their frustrations are bubbling to the surface now that Musk and Trump have entered a full-fledged feud . Musk’s blasting of the bill on his X account as a “ pork-filled ” disaster that will create “ debt slavery ” for Americans has complicated GOP leaders’ already narrow path to passage by energizing those fiscal hawks who have largely been forced to fall in line behind the large spending increases. The Senate has set a self-imposed deadline of passing the tax cuts bill by the Fourth of July, which would then need to again get through the House’s razor-thin majority to make it to Trump’s desk.
A jubilant Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky), a fiscal hawk who was one of just two Republicans to vote against the tax cuts bill last month, told reporters outside of the Capitol on Friday that the Musk-Trump rift had made his day.
“I told my colleagues if I get hit on Independence Avenue and they have to deliver my eulogy, say: ‘He was having his best day ever,’” Massie said, while holding a clock that displays the nation’s debt, currently topping $36 trillion, on its face.
Other deficit hawks who ultimately backed the tax cuts bill under pressure from Trump said they hope Musk’s campaign results in the Senate changing the bill to include more spending cuts before sending it back to the House for final passage.
“We in Congress will hopefully do something we’ve never done, which is actually be fiscally responsible,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said. “The Senate’s going to have to improve the House bill.”
Even though Musk has validated and emboldened Congress’s fiscal hawks, the group has folded several times before under Trump’s arm-twisting and may well do so yet again.
On the campaign trail, Musk said he could cut $2 trillion from the budget, before walking that back to a promise of $1 trillion after he arrived to the White House. By the time he left late last month, DOGE had claimed to have saved $175 billion, which is probably an overcount.
That underperformance has left Republicans without the argument that Musk could slash enough spending to offset their tax cuts and other spending bills.
“There has been a talking point that tariffs and DOGE would provide enough deficit reduction to at least argue the tax cuts are paid for. And both of those hopes have been dashed,” said Jessica Riedl, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a center-right think tank. “DOGE is saving very little money, which has exposed the total unaffordability with the tax bill. Republicans on the Hill are frustrated they can’t plausibly argue DOGE will [pay] for the tax cuts.”
Musk’s relentless assault on the legislation is frustrating Hill leaders who argue the tax cuts package will unleash economic growth that will largely offset its costs. The White House is eager to push it through to pay for its pricey immigration agenda as well, given the bill spends tens of billions on a border wall and to facilitate Trump’s mass deportation plan.
“I have heard from a lot of Republican leaders in the past week with almost expletives saying he’s undermining the very things he’s trying to accomplish — by his behavior and lashing out in vicious ways,” said Stephen Moore, a Trump-aligned economist. “They feel like it’s a betrayal. There’s a mixture of bewilderment and anger.”
Still, Thursday’s clash escalated quickly and left some Republicans feeling torn between two men they have hailed as political revolutionaries in their own rights. Trump said in a social media post that Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, had gone “CRAZY” and threatened to cancel federal contracts for his companies , while Musk claimed he was the only reason Trump won the 2024 election and suggested that Trump should be impeached.
“It’s been hard to watch today,” pro-Trump activist Charlie Kirk said Thursday night on Fox News. He added in a social media post : “I hope Elon and Trump reconcile and do so privately. It would be good for the country and the world if they do.”
Musk spent Thursday night responding to users commenting on the clash, including Bill Ackman, the hedge fund billionaire who is an ally of both men. Ackman wrote that Trump and Musk should reconcile for the good of the country and that they “are much stronger together than apart.”
“You’re not wrong,” Musk replied .
At the same time, Musk had not entirely de-escalated. He made multiple posts using a slur for people with disabilities to refer to Stephen K. Bannon, the former Trump adviser and vocal Musk critic who suggested to the New York Times that Trump should deport him.
Musk’s break with Trump has also created an awkward situation for his fans in Congress who wish to continue the work of DOGE. More than a hundred lawmakers eagerly joined DOGE caucuses and a separate subcommittee led by firebrand Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Georgia) early this year, as many in their base applauded Musk’s attempts to slash spending.
“DOGE is bigger than any one person,” argued Rep. Aaron Bean (R-Florida), who helped launch the House DOGE caucus. “We’ve got work to do.”
Little has come legislatively from the GOP enthusiasm for DOGE so far. But House Republicans are expected to consider codifying the first round of DOGE spending cuts next week, which represent a vanishingly small fraction of what DOGE promised. The rescissions package, which takes only a majority vote to pass in both chambers, cuts more than $9 billion from the foreign aid agency USAID and public broadcasting.
Already, some GOP lawmakers in both chambers have raised objections to the package’s cuts to PEPFAR, a global AIDS and HIV program, and to public radio, which they argue is crucial for rural areas, putting its passage in doubt.
And as Trump and Musk spar, some worry there will be even less appetite on the Hill to take difficult votes to make cuts.
“Will leadership put things on the table? Will they bring these DOGE cuts to the floor, knowing that some of the moderate members [will] whine,” Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Missouri) said. “Do you care more about your seat or saving the country?”
Administration officials began working Friday to portray the president as taking the high road.
“There are many lies the corporate media tells about President Trump. One of the most glaring is that he’s impulsive or short-tempered,” Vice President JD Vance wrote on X , without directly referencing the conflict. “Anyone who has seen him operate under pressure knows that’s ridiculous.”
Natalie Allison contributed to this report.
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