Donald Trump made it clear from the White House on Wednesday that he has no regrets about his latest tax bill, even after sharp public complaints from his so-called best friend Elon Musk.
The president brushed aside Elon’s criticism during a press briefing, saying the administration needed broad Republican backing in Congress to pass the legislation. “Number one, we have to get a lot of votes,” Trump told reporters. “We can’t be cutting — you know, we need, we need to get a lot of support.”
The backlash came after Elon told CBS News he was “disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
According to CBS, Elon expressed frustration with how the bill undermines his Department of Government Efficiency — or DOGE — which he has led since January in a high-profile attempt to reduce wasteful federal spending.
Elon calls the bill wasteful, Trump defends compromises
Elon didn’t hold back when describing Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” which combines sweeping tax cuts with increased funding for the military and border security.
“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Elon said, “but I don’t know if it can be both.” His statement echoed warnings from budget analysts who say the bill could expand the deficit by trillions over the next decade.
The bill scraped through the House last week, but it faces major changes in the Senate to win over skeptical Republicans. Trump admitted he isn’t happy with everything in the bill, saying, “We will be negotiating that bill, and I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it.
That’s the way they go.” He emphasized that the tax cuts were the centerpiece of the legislation. “The level of tax cutting that we’re going to be doing,” he said, was what made the entire deal worth it.
DOGE, under Elon’s leadership, claims to have saved $170 billion in taxpayer money since January by shutting down redundant departments and slashing staff across multiple agencies.
The US Agency for International Development was gutted, and other offices saw massive staff reductions. A report from Challenger, Gray & Christmas estimated 275,000 jobs have been cut from the federal government because of DOGE-linked reforms.
DOGE’s numbers face scrutiny as Elon retreats from government
Not everyone buys Elon’s math. The Associated Press previously reported that 40% of the government contracts canceled by DOGE weren’t expected to save the Treasury any real money. In February, The New York Times noted that DOGE quietly removed five of its most promoted savings claims from its own website.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that Trump’s bill would raise the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next ten years. In 2025 alone, the deficit is expected to run close to $2 trillion, with the national debt currently sitting at $36.2 trillion.
Despite these projections, Trump and congressional Republicans insist the bill will trigger enough economic growth to offset the impact of the tax cuts.
Elon, for his part, is stepping back. During Tesla’s first-quarter earnings call, he said he plans to cut down his involvement with DOGE and spend more time running Tesla, SpaceX, and X. Even so, he plans to keep a small office at the White House and spend “a day or two per week” on DOGE duties until the end of Trump’s term.
Speaking to The Washington Post, Elon said he underestimated how bad the federal bureaucracy really was. “It’s much worse than I realized,” he said.
“DOGE became the whipping boy for everything.” His alliance with Trump and public comments have also sparked intense protests against Tesla. “People were burning Teslas,” Elon told the Post. “Why would you do that? That’s really uncool.”