Trump Issues Cryptic Post on Elon After His 'Big Beautiful Bill' Eruption

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President Donald Trump appeared to offer his first personal response to the barrage of criticism former Department of Government Efficiency head Elon Musk has directed in recent days at the Big Beautiful Bill.

Musk’s harshest shot came in a Tuesday post on X, writing, “I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

The bill passed the House last month in a narrow 215 to 214 vote, with no Democrats supporting it, while two Republicans — Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio — voted against it.

GOP senators like Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky have come out against the Big Beautiful Bill in its current form, saying it adds too much to the national debt.

And this is the line of attack Musk was hammering on in a series of posts on Wednesday, including one that urged Americans, “Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.”

Do you think Trump is mad at Musk?

Yes: 40% (509 Votes)

No: 60% (773 Votes)

Trump appeared to respond to all the Musk salvos by reposting a message that the billionaire businessman recently made, promising that the work of DOGE would continue even as he left government service.

Here was the post of which the president shared an image:

Trump honored Musk last week for his DOGE work by giving him a special gold key to the White House.

The president’s cryptic post, with Musk’s own words, perhaps was communicating that they still share the same goal of cutting government waste.

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt responded to a question about Musk’s opposition to the Big Beautiful Bill, saying, “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it.”

Both White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller and Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought defended the bill, saying the Congressional Budget Office is scoring it wrong by concluding that it adds over $2 trillion in new deficit spending.

“OMB just reviewed the new CBO score of the One Big Beautiful bill. It confirms what we knew about the bill at House passage. The bill REDUCES deficits by $1.4 trillion over ten years when you adjust for CBO’s one big gimmick — not using a realistic current policy baseline,” Vought posted on X.

“It includes $1.7 trillion in mandatory savings, the most in history. If you care about deficits and debt, this bill dramatically improves the fiscal picture,” he added.

Miller responded to the post: “Exactly. The only spending change in the bill is a giant spending cut. The entire ‘deficit’ change per the lefty CBO was not expiring the Trump Tax Cut from 2017.”

In other words, the CBO’s score of the bill calls for allowing the 2017 Trump tax cuts to expire and assumes that the government will take in more money at the restored higher rates.

Supporters of the Big Beautiful Bill argue that the CBO miscalculated the impact of the TCJA because it did not adequately factor in the impact of economic growth, spurred by tax cuts, on total revenue.

In 2017, before the bill’s passage, total revenue was $3.3 trillion. Last year, with the tax cuts largely in place, revenue was $4.9 trillion. This is not surprising because the Gross Domestic Product grew from $19.6 trillion in 2017 to $29.1 trillion in 2024. More economic productivity meant more tax revenue.

Then-President John Kennedy said in support of the tax cuts he proposed in 1962, “It is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now.”

The House Ways and Means Committee noted that in the five years after the TCJA’s passage “tax revenues averaged $170 billion per year above CBO’s post-2017 projections.”

Further, by fiscal year 2022, that figure was $884 billion higher.

Contributing Journalist

SummaryMore Biographical InformationRecent PostsContact

Randy DeSoto has written more than 3,000 articles for The Western Journal since he began with the company in 2015. He is a graduate of West Point and Regent University School of Law. He is the author of the book "We Hold These Truths" and screenwriter of the political documentary "I Want Your Money."

Birthplace

Harrisburg, Pennsylvania

Nationality

American

Honors/Awards

Graduated dean's list from West Point

Education

United States Military Academy at West Point, Regent University School of Law

Books Written

We Hold These Truths

Professional Memberships

Virginia and Pennsylvania state bars

Location

Phoenix, Arizona

Languages Spoken

English

Topics of Expertise

Politics, Entertainment, Faith

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