Billionaire Elon Musk has expressed his disappointment with US President Donald Trump’s economic policies.
Last week, Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’ was passed by a narrow margin in the US House of Representatives. This bill promises multi-trillion dollar tax cuts and increased defense spending. It will now be sent to the Senate.
In an interview with US broadcaster CBS News, Musk said, “I’m disappointed because the bill is actually increasing the budget deficit, not reducing it.”
Economic analysis suggests that the US budget deficit could increase by an estimated $600 billion in the next fiscal year due to Trump’s bill.
Musk also said, “This bill also undermines the work of the ‘Doge’ team. Doge (DOGE) is the ‘Department of Government Efficiency’—the Trump administration’s advisory body to reduce government spending, which Musk himself led. Under this organization, many sectors of spending were cut, including the end of US foreign aid.”
Musk said, “A bill can be big, it can be beautiful—but both together, I doubt.”
The bill repeats Trump’s old promises to extend the tax break granted during Trump’s first term (2017), allocate more money to the defense sector and fund a large-scale deportation of immigrants. It also proposes to raise the debt limit to $4 trillion, so that the government can borrow more to finance its spending.
Musk has already announced that he is stepping down from the role of Doge. His goal was to cut government spending by $1 trillion by canceling contracts and cutting the number of government employees. According to the DoJ website, it has already saved about $175 billion, although a BBC analysis found no evidence to support this claim.
Musk also announced that he would significantly reduce political donations in the future and would remain at the helm of Tesla for at least another five years.
Musk faced widespread criticism during his tenure as DoJ chief. His efforts to cut federal staff and cut foreign aid made him controversial. Tesla sales were affected, leading to protests and boycotts.
However, Musk claims that “what I did was necessary.” Source: BBC