Speak Your Piece: Musk hates the big beautiful spending bill
Days after leaving the White House to return to his business enterprises, Elon Musk blasted the “Big Beautiful Bill” — the pending budget legislation and priority of his friend, President Donald Trump.
Trump and Musk had been seeing eye-to-eye, until Musk left Washington at the end of May. It had to be hindsight when Musk, on X, told the president and the GOP — and the world — the budget legislation is an abomination that will increase the national debt, which is $34 trillion! This was a topic on Speak Your Piece on WBCB 1490 after the famed Elon Musk took a poke at his friends in Washington and disrupted budget negotiations.
As it stands, Musk said the budget that passed the House and is before the Senate undermines the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) which he spearheaded, and wipes out $1 trillion in savings touted by the DOGE team.
Officially titled “One Big Beautiful Bill,” it extends the 2017 tax cuts, increases border and defense funding, but is “porky,” i.e., laden with special items for lawmakers, according to Musk. Can spending be cut, or will it pass the Senate as-is? It may be more difficult now that Musk has spoken.
“It’s an abomination!” Musk reiterated over the weekend, exciting the Trump-haters, sending rumbles through the congressional offices, and confusing the GOP leadership with his public criticism and timing of the tirade. Trump appeared unruffled.
Musk is a business guy, not a politician — certainly not a Trump — and apparently he doesn’t know politics is the art of the possible. In Musk’s world, it may be more like reaching for the impossible.
We do know he hates our national debt and believes the pending bill will increase it even more. In response, he made plenty of noise against its enactment. But will it change minds? That $34 trillion national debt can’t be wiped out in our world now, but is there the political will to cut more spending? Follow the money.
Pat Wandling hosts Speak Your Piece, from which this commentary is adapted, weekdays at noon on WBCB 1490.
