Clash of the titans. Source: Google Gemini.
On May 28, Elon Musk, de facto head of the Department of Government Efficiency (AKA DOGE), officially left the Trump administration, as his status as a “special government employee” expired. That same day, he criticized Trump’s signature legislative package, the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.” The reconciliation bill, he claimed, “increases the budget deficit” and “undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
Nine days later, Musk took to X to further lambast the legislation, stating that it was a “disgusting abomination” and heaped shame on House members who voted for it.
Recall that the House narrowly passed the bill 215-214 on May 23, after securing late-night negotiations with key defectors blocking its advancement to the Senate. The bill currently is stalled in the Senate, as U.S. senators continue to discuss what should – and should not be – included in the legislation.
The Trump-Musk fallout has garnered an extraordinary amount of attention from the media. A recent – and highly cited – YouGov poll from June 5 revealed that, while most Republicans sided with Trump in the feud, a majority of total Americans sided with neither Trump nor Musk.
So, how have members of Congress reacted to this war between the president and the world’s richest man? More specifically, have their positions changed on the “big, beautiful bill” as it looks certain to change in the Senate and return to the House for a second vote?
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) was quick to break with Musk after his critique of the bill, noting in a press conference that Musk’s statement was “very disappointing” that his “friend Elon was terribly wrong” about the bill.
Other Republican leaders in the House joined Johnson’s defense of the bill. On June 5, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) reposted a Truth Social post from the president that stated: “I don’t mind Elon turning against me, but he should have done so months ago. This is one of the Greatest Bills ever presented to Congress.” Scalise replied to the post thanking Trump “for following through on [his] promise to restore America’s golden age.”
Not all House Republicans shared their leadership’s sentiment. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who chairs the DOGE Subcommittee in the House – and originally voted for the bill’s passage – announced she would not vote for any bill that surrendered “state power to the AI industry for 10 years.” She had not realized, the New York Times reported, “the mega-bill she voted for would block states from regulating artificial intelligence for a decade.” MTG, as she popularly is known, tweeted the next day that “forcing eminent domain on people’s private properties to link the future skynet is not very Republican.”
Her position was striking since it created another hurdle to enactment of the legislation. Rep. Greene is a fierce advocate of the president who wore a “Trump Was Right About Everything” hat at his address to a joint session of Congress in March.
Republican Mike Flood (NE) also admitted to voters he had a missed a provision of the bill that he found objectionable. And Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) voted against the legislation and joined Musk in damning it as fiscally reckless. The libertarian also urged Musk to fund primary challengers to House Republicans who voted for the One Big Beautiful Bill.
Democrats have taken differing sides on the Trump-Musk feud but remain unified in opposing the bill. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Minority Leader, even noted that he and Musk agreed on the legislation being a “disgusting abomination.”
Other Democrats, such as Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-GA) kept their distance from Musk. On June 4, Thompson tweeted that Musk is “now… loudly disagreeing with the President over the Republicans’ Big Ugly Bill. This is chaos, corruption, and confusion at its finest.”
GOP Senators, empowered by their smaller chamber size and enhanced bargaining power, have largely avoided taking sides in the Trump vs. Musk spat, preferring instead on the ultimate goal of passing the legislation. Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) tweeted on June 4 that “@SenateGOP is going to achieve @POTUS’ objectives with our reconciliation bill.” Senator John Husted (R-OH) tweeted on June 3 that “we’ve got to get this done,” referring to the passage of the reconciliation bill. Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) also posted on X that same day that “we’re getting this done.” And Senator Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) said that “Tennesseans are counting on us to get a Big Beautiful Bill to President Trump’s desk” and that senators “would not let them down.”
Senate Republicans are not all on the same page. Rand Paul (R-KY) noted that he agreed with Elon on the bill being an abomination, tweeting that “we know another $5 trillion in debt is a huge mistake.” Other senators, such as Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Susan Collins (R-ME), and Josh Hawley (R-MO) are opposing the bill due to its provisions to cut Medicaid. And Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) is worried that his state “will not be able to afford” provisions in the bill that require states to share more of the costs for food stamps with the federal government.
As two of the most powerful men in the federal government continue to exchange harsh words, their rhetoric is setting the tone for members of Congress to team up with Trump or Musk and empowering them to air their grievances on the bill. While Trump has previously pushed for a July 4 deadline to pass the bill in Congress, he has recently stated that it is “okay” if the bill takes a little longer to get to his desk.
It’s likely that Trump understands that his biggest legislative Hail Mary agenda item to date may take a little longer than anticipated. And perhaps Musk was right when he asserted that the bill could be big or beautiful, but not both. Only time will tell whether the narrow GOP majorities in the two chambers can come to an agreement that President Trump can sign and call the “One Big Beautiful Law.”
John C. Paschold is a Ph. D candidate in political science at Vanderbilt University, where he is a Russell G. Hamilton Scholar. He has broad research interests in the field of American politics, including American political institutions, American political behavior, and quantitative methods.
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