Elon Musk said the spending in President Trump’s “big, beautiful bill undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
Mr. Musk also suggested that the description of the bill goes too far.
“I was like disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit … and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” he said in an interview with CBS. “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful. I don’t know if it can be both.”
The comments cast doubt on the massive bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson shepherded through the House and over to the Senate after striking deals with both conservative and moderate GOP lawmakers.
The bill has faced blowback from fiscal hawks. They say the bill’s spending cuts are insignificant compared to the trillions it will add to the national deficits and debt over the next decade.
Looking to ease the Musk-related concerns and avoid a possible public relations nightmare that could sink the bill, Mr. Johnson took to Twitter Wednesday to applaud Mr. Musk and the DOGE team for the “incredible work” they have done in “exposing waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government.”
Mr. Johnson signaled that lawmakers plan to incorporate the cuts into legislation.
“The House is eager and ready to act on DOGE’s findings so we can deliver even more cuts to big government that President Trump wants and the American people demand,” he said.
For now, the bill is under consideration in the Senate, where Sens. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin and Rand Paul of Kentucky have criticized the spending levels.
Mr. Trump tapped Mr. Musk to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, tasked with eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the federal government.
Mr. Musk and DOGE initially vowed to find $2 trillion in savings.
However, the pledge eroded over time, shrinking to $1 trillion and then $175 billion, according to the latest tally on the group’s website.
The effort — and the Democrats’ pushback against it — turned Mr. Musk, who donated $250 million to Mr. Trump’s 2024 campaign, into a polarizing political figure and created some headaches for Tesla, which saw a decline in sales despite his popularity among conservatives.
Mr. Musk also came out on the losing end of a high-profile state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin after Democrats made the race a referendum on the world’s richest man.
Mr. Musk, the Tesla CEO, recently took a step back from the DOGE effort and signaled that he’s going to “do a lot less” in terms of political spending.
“I think I’ve done enough,” he said at the recent Qatar Economic Forum.
