{"id":152104,"date":"2025-06-04T01:46:57","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T01:46:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/musk-calls-trumps-tax-bill-a-disgusting-abomination-bbc\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T01:46:57","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T01:46:57","slug":"musk-calls-trumps-tax-bill-a-disgusting-abomination-bbc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/musk-calls-trumps-tax-bill-a-disgusting-abomination-bbc\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk calls Trump&#039;s tax bill a \u2018disgusting abomination&#039; &#8211; BBC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk has hit out at President Donald Trump&#x27;s signature tax and spending bill, describing it as a &quot;disgusting abomination&quot;.<br \/>The legislation &#8211; which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and more defence spending while also allowing the US government to borrow more money &#8211; was passed by the House of Representatives in May.<br \/>&quot;Shame on those who voted for it,&quot; Musk said in a post on X on Tuesday.<br \/>The tech billionaire left the administration abruptly last week after 129 days working to cut costs with his team, known as Doge.<br \/>The comments mark his first public disagreement with Trump since leaving government, <a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c20q54vn0evo\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 bGFWdi\">after having previously called the plan &quot;disappointing&quot;.<\/a> <br \/>The South African-born tech billionaire&#x27;s time in the Trump administration came to an end on 31 May, although Trump said that &quot;he will, always, be with us, helping all the way&quot;.  <br \/>In its current form, the bill &#8211; which Trump refers to as the &quot;big beautiful bill&quot; &#8211; has been estimated to increase the budget deficit &#8211; the difference between what the government spends and the revenue it receives &#8211; by about $600bn (\u00a3444bn) in the next fiscal year.<br \/>In a series of posts on X on Tuesday, Musk said that the &quot;outrageous, pork-filled&quot; spending bill will &quot;massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America [sic] citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt&quot;.<br \/>In American politics &quot;pork&quot; refers to spending on projects in lawmakers&#x27; constituencies.<br \/>Musk, who had previously vowed to fund campaign challenges against any Republican that votes against Trump&#x27;s agenda, added a political warning in another post. <br \/>&quot;In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,&quot; he wrote.<br \/>Asked about Musk&#x27;s comments soon after the first post, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said &quot;the President already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill&quot;. <br \/>&quot;This is one, big, beautiful bill,&quot; she added. &quot;And he&#x27;s sticking to it.&quot; <br \/>The legislation also pledges to extend soon-to-expire tax cuts passed during the first Trump administration in 2017, as well as an influx of funds for defence spending and to fund the administration&#x27;s mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. <br \/>It also proposes lifting the limit on the amount of money the government can borrow, known as the debt ceiling, to $4tn. <br \/>The comments from Musk reflect wider tensions among Republicans over the plan, which faced stiff opposition from different wings of the party as it worked its way through the House. <br \/>The Senate has now taken it up, and divisions are already emerging in the Republican-controlled chamber.<br \/>Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, has said over the last few days he will not support the bill if it includes the provision to raise the debt ceiling.<br \/>&quot;The GOP [the Republican Party] will own the debt once they vote for this,&quot; he told CBS News, the BBC&#x27;s US partner, over the weekend. <br \/>Trump responded to Paul with a series of angry social media posts, accusing him of having &quot;very little understanding of the bill&quot; and saying that the &quot;people of Kentucky can&#x27;t stand him&quot;. <br \/>&quot;His ideas are actually crazy,&quot; Trump wrote. <br \/>Republican lawmakers pushed back on Musk&#x27;s comments, with Senate majority leader John Thune telling reporters the party plans to &quot;proceed full speed ahead&quot; despite &quot;a difference of opinion&quot;.  <br \/>&quot;We have an agenda that everybody campaigned on, most notably the president,&quot; he said. <br \/>Mike Johnson &#8211; the Republican House Speaker who has ushered the legislation through the House &#8211; told reporters on Capitol Hill that &quot;my friend Elon is terribly wrong&quot;. <br \/>&quot;It&#x27;s a very important first start. Elon is missing it,&quot; Johnson said. <br \/>Johnson said he held a 20-minute phone call with the tycoon about the bill on Monday, adding that its phasing out of electric vehicle tax credits could &quot;have an effect&quot; on Tesla, Musk&#x27;s firm. <br \/>&quot;I lament that,&quot; Johnson said, expressing surprise that Musk criticised the bill despite their call. &quot;I just deeply regret he&#x27;s made this mistake.\u201d<br \/>Among the issues that upset Musk was involved air traffic control at the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), according to <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/www.axios.com\/2025\/06\/03\/elon-musk-trump-white-house-relationship\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 bGFWdi\">Axios<\/a>. <br \/>Musk wanted it to be run on his Starlink satellite system, but he was denied because of issues relating to the technology and the appearance of a conflict of interest, the political outlet reported. <br \/>Some Democrats welcomed Musk\u2019s comments despite their previous criticism of him and the work of Doge. <br \/>&quot;Even Elon Musk, who&#x27;s been part of the whole process, and is one of Trump&#x27;s buddies, said the bill is bad,&quot; Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said. &quot;We can imagine how bad this bill is.&quot; <br \/>Trump and Republicans in Congress have set a deadline of 4 July to get the measure passed and signed into law.<br \/>Musk&#x27;s posts on the platform suggest a rift with Trump, who he supported in last year&#x27;s November election with donations of more than $250m. <br \/>To make peace with spending hawks, Trump is also asking Congress to pass a plan that would reduce current spending by $9bn and which is reportedly based on Doge&#x27;s work.<br \/>Demetric Deshawn Scott sent the letters to prevent a man from testifying against him in a robbery case, officials say.<br \/>A recent spate of attacks targeting Jewish people and institutions has led to calls for heightened security<br \/>The executive order raises import taxes for US firms buying from other countries &#8211; but the levy remains at 25% for the UK.<br \/>The BBC&#x27;s Carl Nasman on Senator Joni Ernst&#x27;s back and forth about Medicaid with a town hall audience member.<br \/>Joss was credited with improving the representation of Native Americans on screen, from King of the Hill to Parks and Recreation.<br \/>Copyright 2025 BBC. All rights reserved.\u00a0<i id=\"\" class=\"sc-d16436d-0 fhKUCU\">\u00a0<\/i>The<i id=\"bbc\" class=\"sc-d16436d-0 fhKUCU\"> BBC <\/i>is<i id=\"not-responsible-for-the-content-of-external-sites.\" class=\"sc-d16436d-0 fhKUCU\"> not responsible for the content of external sites.<\/i>\u00a0<a target=\"_self\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/editorialguidelines\/guidance\/feeds-and-links\" class=\"sc-f9178328-0 bGFWdi\"><b id=\"read-about-our-approach-to-external-linking.\" class=\"sc-d16436d-0 jpoiOL\">Read about our approach to external linking.<\/b><\/a><br \/>\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/news.google.com\/rss\/articles\/CBMiWkFVX3lxTE16Y083ZTRVZXdHX01hUTVfaDk3RHJaS3BFUDlWYXhoUjhpLUJPU0Jrb3l4ZHFTOFhSNkZ4SGNlNU1xMU5wRS03bjNoNHNiMUVFdE1Jc2Y0WmhQUdIBX0FVX3lxTE1NTFBXTll2S0ZCMWdfSnBTdS1hSUZ2Slo2alRHZkpBbHZPYUFYeS1WRTJZMW5aZUJ5bXoxOXplXzItRG10UHVsYXVnSDVkVGFUY3FqNHpPenZTdWduNFR3?oc=5\">source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Elon Musk has hit out at President Donald Trump&#x27;s signature tax and spending bill, describing it as a &quot;disgusting abomination&quot;.The legislation &#8211; which includes multi-trillion dollar tax breaks and more defence spending while also allowing the US government to borrow more money &#8211; was passed by the House of Representatives in May.&quot;Shame on those who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":152105,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152104","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152104","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152104"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152104\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/152105"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152104"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152104"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152104"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}