Elon Against The Big, Beautiful Bill

The erstwhile Trump ally’s criticism should draw skepticism, not support

The House miraculously passed President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” late last month, setting up a grueling battle to get it through the Senate.

Trump’s marque legislation now faces an unexpected problem: Elon Musk. The billionaire who once seemed like the acting president is now out of the White House and standing athwar the actual president. Musk called the bill a “disgusting abomination” that would leave Americans with “crushingly unsustainable debt.” He vowed to punish those lawmakers who voted for it, which would be nearly the entire Republican House caucus.

Musk’s criticisms were amplified by many conservatives. They share the billionaire’s antipathy to government waste. They also want to stay in Musk’s good graces since he still runs their favorite social media platform. While the big, beautiful bill is far from perfect, it’s the only legislation with any chance of passing Congress. A massive spending cut would die in committee. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson had to allay multiple competing interests to get it through. Few are thrilled with it, but that’s most legislation. The legislative branch is built on compromise and give-and-take. Rarely does a perfect bill pass. Hell, rarely does any bill pass nowadays.

While the bill isn’t ideal, it does fund Trump’s immigration agenda, allowing the federal government to increase deportations and strengthen border security. That’s matters more than fiscal concerns. Additionally, it makes permanent Trump’s tax cuts and implements welfare reform. The Right should be happy with what it does. This is the best we’re going to get with our clownish Congress.

Musk wants to kill the bill because he thinks we can do better. His posting against it is peak Elon. His X feed is filled with his usual Redditor jokes about killing the bill as his audience asks Grok what he’s talking about. It’s pure X.

While Elon relies on traditional fiscal conservatism to attack the bill, only content farmers wanting to increase their X payouts should be fooled by this. His opposition to the bill is rooted in his own business interests, not principles about government spending. The legislation would cut the electric vehicle tax credit, which would harm Tesla’s business. While Elon has previously said he doesn’t mind the tax credit being ditched, he’s now lambasting the cuts. It’s rich to deride a bill for adding more to the national debt when this is your real concern.

Musk is also incensed by other matters that have little to do with the national debt. He doesn’t like that he was pushed out of the White House. He’s outraged over Trump rescinding the nomination of Jared Isaacman, a close Musk friend, as NASA administration. He doesn’t like that the government passed on using Starlink for national air traffic control and favors Sam Altman’s AI data center instead of his own.

These are all matters relating to his personal interest, not the national interest. One can understand him feeling slighted by the president he helped get elected, but his feelings don’t concern us. If this bill doesn’t pass, we will not obtain the resources to increase deportations. That matters more to the American public than NASA being run by a SpaceX booster or Tesla continuing to benefit from government largesse.

Even if you took Elon’s stated opposition against the bill seriously, the criticism is delusional. Republicans were never going to make a serious dent in the deficit with this Congress. They need a much bigger majority to even have a chance. The primary purpose of the bill is to fund immigration enforcement and secure Trump’s tax cuts. It’s not intended to be a grand slash of the debt. It got loaded up with some unnecessary items because that’s the only way a small majority can pass such legislation.

But it would even be tough to pass sweeping cuts with a larger majority. The biggest area of government spending is entitlements. Touching entitlements is political suicide. Nearly 80 percent of the public oppose any cuts to Social Security. Republicans lost the 2012 election over the perception they would change entitlements. Lawmakers who proposed such ideas would face the wrath of voters. AARP is one of the most powerful lobbies in the country. They can make representatives pay for even thinking about entitlement reform.

Even less substantial parts of government spending would be difficult to cut. The American economy depends on its military might. Significant cuts to defense would likely upend the economy and deflate American coffers. Subsidies for certain industries face serious opposition from powerful lobbies and billionaires, such as Elon Musk. There’s a reason why foreign aid is the only thing a majority of Americans can agree should be cut. It’s the one item very few Americans benefit from. Everything else can claim beneficiaries that oppose its elimination.

Americans aren’t willing to sacrifice anything to solve a distant matter. They know the debt is an issue, but it doesn’t affect their everyday life. It’s something off in the future and they may be long gone before it ruins the country. The necessary cuts to rein in the debt would anger Americans right now far more than the debt itself.

The nation will only solve this problem when a crisis is upon us and we can no longer ignore it. We are not living in that moment.

Elon’s opposition to the big, beautiful bill won’t spur Republicans to create a better bill. It will just mean no bill passes. The billionaire had ample opportunity to help shape it when he was at the White House. He chose not to. Now he’s signaling against it to express his frustration with the Trump White House and Congress. He still has clout on the Right. His ownership of X and wealth make conservatives listen to him. Elon hopes he can demonstrate his importance to Trump by killing the bill. He risks alienating the president, but he may hope his act wrings concessions from the White House.

This could be the beginning of Elon’s heel turn against Trump, or just a brief temper tantrum over frustration with the government. If he turns on Trump, he will quickly learn that he’s no match for the popularity of the president. The Right will quickly turn on Elon and scuttle his political influence. Trump remains the undisputed leader. Republicans fear his wrath far more than Elon’s memes.

The tech entrepreneur is still a valuable asset to the Right, even if he is fairly cringe. He just needs to know his place.