Before the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and the world’s most powerful person, President Donald Trump, got into a bizarre spat for the world to see on X June 5, Musk had already said he was upset. I don’t blame him. 

Just after leaving his short stint at the White House heading up the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), Musk slammed Trump’s “big, beautiful” policy bill working its way through the Senate. 

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk said in a post on X. “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 is right. There are a lot of excellent provisions in the bill, like extending the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act and reforming deductions for small businesses. It will help Americans, to be sure. But it doesn’t go far enough to cut extraneous spending and curb the national deficit, which is massive. 

'If America goes broke, nothing else matters,” Musk posted on X June 5. “Congress is spending America into bankruptcy,” Musk also posted.

Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) has been trying to expose some of the worst parts of the big, beautiful bill for weeks. He posted on X June 4, “Senate Republicans, all but maybe 4-5, are wasting more energy defending socialist healthcare expansion and Biden’s Green New Scam than advancing America First policies. No going backwards. It’s time to go on offense. Cut spending. Shrink the Swamp.”

I couldn’t agree more. This is where Republicans could learn a thing or two from their Democratic Party counterparts, if only for the sake of political strategy: When Democrats have the majority, they don’t cede ground on what they value. They push even harder for policies they want. Why don’t Republicans do the same thing? 

Republicans have nothing to lose politically. They should circle the wagons, cut government spending and pass a bill Americans will benefit from in a myriad of ways. I’m disappointed to see that after all this, the Republican Party doesn’t want to cut government spending or the national debt when they have the power in their hands to do so.

Musk likely takes this failure personally because he took a brief respite from building rockets and self-driving cars to make the government more efficient. And yet the spending in the big, beautiful bill could likely offset what DOGE saves, if not worse. He’s right to take Republicans in Congress to task for not partnering with him in cutting spending too. This is their lane --- only they can do it.

In a real-life example of the famous idiom, “Politics makes strange bedfellows,” Democrats smell blood in the water so they’re now taking sides with Musk, a person they’ve had a love/hate relationship with since before the election.

Democrat California Rep. Ro Khanna posted on X June 5 about Musk's criticisms of the “big, beautiful bill.” Khanna told Politico on Wednesday that Democrats should “ultimately be trying to convince [Musk] that the Democratic Party has more of the values that he agrees with.”

I have to give Khanna and other Democrats points for trying, but I hope voters see through this for the power play that it is. Americans generally seemed to love Musk prior to 2024. In Silicon Valley, he was respected and admired, even if he seemed intense and quirky. His main goal is colonizing Mars and making electric vehicles. This seemed hip and cool with everybody, especially elitist liberals, until he started siding with Trump. Then the left piled on, cheered on driving down Tesla stock and started destroying his brand and vehicles. 

Now that Musk has a beef with Trump and Republicans over the big, beautiful bill, the left wants Musk on their side again. Democrats hate Trump so much, they are willing to expose their own blatant hypocrisy, flip-flopping easily when they think they can benefit. Even if they have to use Musk to do it.

I can’t read inside Musk’s mind, but I don’t think he’s on anybody’s side right now, Republicans or Democrats. He seems genuinely interested in making government efficient for Americans --- and that’s a worthy goal. He’s right to slam Republicans in Congress for passing a bill with too much spending. I hope he ignores Democrats’ bid to be friendly again, especially after how they smeared him when he aligned with Trump. 

Maybe Musk’s verbal attack on Republicans will change their mind and motivate them to ignore the infighting and pass a bill that cuts spending, along with taxes, for the good of all Americans. Why Republicans aren’t more on board with that, especially when it would only help them in terms of politics and optics, is beyond me.