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• Wed May 28 2025

Musk 'disappointed' by Trump's tax and spending bill

14 hours ago Share Save James FitzGerald and Nadine Yousif BBC News Share Save

Watch: Elon Musk says he is "disappointed" with Trump's "big, beautiful bill", in interview with CBS Sunday Morning

Elon Musk has criticised one of the signature policies of Donald Trump, marking a break from the US president who he helped to win re-election in 2024. Last week, the US House of Representatives narrowly passed what Trump calls his "big, beautiful" bill, which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and a pledge to increase defence spending. It will now head to the Senate. Tech titan Musk told the BBC's US partner CBS News he was "disappointed" by the plan, which he felt "undermines" the work he did for the president on reducing spending. Musk was enlisted as Trump's cost-cutting tsar - ending funds for US foreign aid among other projects - before announcing he would step back.

Watch: Trump reacts to Musk's disappointment with tax and spending bill

"I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly," Musk said in the interview with CBS Sunday Morning, a clip of which was released by the broadcaster before transmission. He went on to argue that Trump's plan "increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it". It is thought that the legislation could increase the deficit - or the difference between what the US government spends and the revenue that it receives - by about $600bn (?444bn) in the next fiscal year. Furthermore, the bill "undermines the work that the Doge team is doing", Musk said, using the acronym of the cost-cutting advisory body the Department of Government Efficiency. Referring to Trump's moniker for the legislation, Musk told CBS: "I think a bill can be big or beautiful. I don't know if it can be both."