The top congressional Republican leaders fired back at Elon Musk and his criticism of President Donald Trump’s “One Big, Beautiful Bill” on Tuesday, with one calling the former White House senior adviser “terribly wrong.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., and House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., both reacted to Musk calling the funding megabill a “disgusting abomination.”
Johnson said Musk was “terribly wrong” with his comments while Thune brushed off the criticism as a “difference of opinion.”
Musk, less than a week after leaving his role in the Trump administration as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, took to X earlier Tuesday to say he “just can’t stand it anymore.”
“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” Musk posted.
"We obviously respect everything that Elon did with DOGE. On this particular issue, we have a difference of opinion,” Thune told a gaggle of reporters. “I think it’s rooted in the fact he’s accepting CBO assumptions that are built upon a static scoring assessment of the effect ... that these changes will have on our economy.
“All the modeling that we’ve seen suggests that the changes that are being made ... are going to lead to significant growth. You couple the growth with the biggest spending reduction in history and you will see a reduction, not an increase, in the deficit.”
Johnson told reporters that “my friend Elon is terribly wrong” about the bill, which will fund Trump’s domestic policy agenda.
“But for him to come out and pan the whole bill, to me, is just very disappointing — very surprising in light of the conversation I had with him yesterday,” Johnson said. “It’s not personal,” the speaker added. “I just deeply regret that he’s made this mistake.”
As for Trump himself, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president "already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill."
"It doesn't change the president's opinion. This is one big, beautiful bill, and he's sticking to it," she said.
Added Thune, “My hope is as he has an opportunity to further assess what this bill actually does that he’ll come to a different conclusion.”
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.