Musk Doubles Distances from Trump Again by Criticizing Budget Bill

Billionaire Elon Musk has doubled down on his distaste for President Donald Trump's sprawling tax and spending cuts bill, hours before it was narrowly cleared in a late-night Senate vote.

Senate Republicans on Saturday procedurally advanced the package of tax breaks, spending cuts and bolstered deportation funds before its July Fourth deadline.

The tally, 51-49, came after a tumultuous night with Vice President JD Vance at the Capitol to break a potential tie. Tense scenes played out in the chamber as voting came to a standstill, dragging on for more than three hours as holdout senators huddled for negotiations, and took private meetings off the floor. In the end, two Republicans opposed the motion to proceed, joining all Democrats.

Hours before, Mr Musk took to social media to claim the latest draft will "destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country."

"It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future," he said of the nearly 1,000-page bill. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO later posted that the bill would be "political suicide for the Republican Party".

The criticisms reopen a recent fiery conflict between the former head of the Department of Government Efficiency and the administration he recently left. They also represent yet another headache for Republican Senate leaders who are suing their majorities in Congress to push aside Democratic opposition, but they have run into a series of political and policy setbacks.

Not all Republican politicians are on board with proposals to reduce spending on Medicaid, food stamps and other programs as a way to help cover the cost of extending some $3.8 trillion in Trump tax breaks. This is also not the first time Musk has made his opinions about Mr Trump's "big, beautiful bill" clear.

Days after he left the federal government last month with a laudatory celebration in the Oval Office, he blasted the bill as "pork-filled" and a "disgusting abomination". "Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it," Mr Musk wrote on X earlier this month.

In another post, the wealthy GOP donor who had recently forecasted that he'd step back from political donations threatened to fire lawmakers who "betrayed the American people".

When Mr Trump clapped back to say he was disappointed with Mr Musk, back-and-forth fighting erupted and quickly escalated.