'This is important to him': Trump reportedly furious at Musk over efforts to tank his bill

04 June

U.S. President Donald Trump makes a sports announcement at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 5, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis

This week, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk went from being the muscle of President Donald Trump's second administration to one of its biggest hindrances.

The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that officials close to the president have been "caught off guard" by Musk's ongoing tirade against Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill Act." The tech magnate's campaign against Trump's first major second-term domestic policy push hit a crescendo Wednesday after the world's richest man told his hundreds of millions of followers to call their senators and tell them to "KILL the BILL." He later tweeted an image of Uma Thurman as "The Bride" from the Quentin Tarantino film "Kill Bill" with the title of the movie prominently displayed.

Musk has also been urging lawmakers to scrap the current bill and start over from scratch, which House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) dismissed outright on Wednesday. Johnson said that the current legislation has been in the works for 14 months, and that Republicans "don't have time" to begin anew. So far, Republicans have mostly stood by their vote, and are eager to hand Trump a win in Congress.

“This is Donald Trump’s signature achievement. This is important to him," Rep. Dusty Johnson (R-S.D.) told the Journal. "Members had better think three or four times before they decide to get in the way of this victory."

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the bill is expected to add roughly $2.4 trillion to the federal deficit over the next decade, and its cuts to federal Medicaid funding would result in 10.3 million Americans losing their health insurance. Additionally, the bill would require states to pay a portion of the cost for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, or food stamps) for the first time in history. This has resulted in even some of Trump's biggest supporters in Congress, like Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) to express concern about the legislation.

Other conservative Republicans, like Sens. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.), have also highlighted the impact the bill would have on the federal deficit. And Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) recently tweeted that the bill was a "debt bomb ticking," which Musk reposted on his own account.

"It’s also the biggest missed opportunity conservatives have ever had to put our country back on a track of fiscal sanity," Massie said. "If we defeat this bill, a better one can be offered that won’t bankrupt our country."

Click here to read the Journal's report in full.

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