Elon Musk said he is “disappointed” with President Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” and feels the Department of Government Efficiency, which he spearheaded for the administration, has become a political “whipping boy.”
“I 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,” the X and Tesla boss told CBS News on Tuesday.
Musk had aimed for DOGE to cut $1 trillion in annual government spending; in April, he said the new department had sliced $160 billion from the federal budget.
The “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” championed by President Trump narrowly passed in the House last week. It featured a few key pieces for the president, including extending his 2017 tax cuts and adding his plan for no taxes on tips, overtime and social security; the bill is also projected to “increase the federal deficit of $3.8 trillion,” the Congressional Budget Office said.
“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” Musk told CBS. “But I don’t know if it can be both, [in] my personal opinion.”
In another interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Musk said DOGE became the scapegoat for any political problems in recent months.
“DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything,” he said. “Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it.”
Musk’s work with DOGE led to severe blowback against Tesla, his electric car company, with violent protestors attacking company stores. A number of clips also went viral of vandals keying and damaging Tesla cars and trucks following President Trump’s inauguration in January.
Tesla’s stock took a major hit as a result, dropping from about $380 per share at the beginning of the year to around $220 per share in April. The company’s stock has surged higher in the last month, trading for $362 per share on Wednesday morning.
