By T N Ashok
NEW YORK: Cracks have begun to emerge in the Trump-Musk relationship as the latter has shown his disappointment with President Donald Trump on the recent domestic policy endorsed by the Congress. He said in a TV interview that he was “disappointed” that it would increase the federal deficit.
“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS’ “Sunday Morning” in an interview.
The GOP has been constantly criticizing the previous Biden administration for increasing the budget deficit and had been going hammer and tongs with spending cuts. Now the Trump administration seems to have fallen into the same trap of deficit balloon for an entirely set of different reasons.
Musk’s public break comes as the Republicans’ bill heads to the Senate, where several senators have also criticized the legislation for increasing the deficit. The legislative package encompasses many of Trump’s priorities, and the president has urged Congress to send the bill to his desk for a signature “as soon as possible.”
He has called it the Big Beautiful Bill, and for the urban middle class its anything but beautiful, as Trump has sought to cut down the expenditure on Medicare and Medicaid, considered a socialistic measure, to compensate for the tax cuts he is offering the rich bold and beautiful. In the first instance the bill eliminated 8 million people from their eligibility avail of the benefits of the bill.
Secondly it enhances coverage under the two schemes by boosting the cost by over $1,000 which coming on top of inflation and grocery prices could end up being unacceptable to the middle-class populations.
This is how its playing out: Biden pandered to the middle-class expanding Obamacare offering them discounted Medicare and Medicaid and making up the losses by taxing the rich , but trump has gone in reverse gear cutting down on expenditure on Medicare and Medicaid on specious grounds that many were falsely doctored into the scheme and by saving thus subsidise the rich by lowering their taxes.
Biden depended on the middle class votes for his party to retain power. But Trump needs donations from the rich to sustain his election campaigns as the cases foisted against him during the Biden era , not that Biden was responsible for it, but his own doings put a big hole in his pocket also drained out the finances of the GOP which subsidized is court cases expenditure.
Now that Biden is out, Trump could also see his policies boomeranging on him in the November 2026 mid-term elections to the house. The urban middle class is deeply disappointed with Trump, whom they voted for against Biden, has not delivered on the promise of keeping prices down. In fact, prices have gone up to the contrary.
Taking 8 million out of the health care net has angered many. Besides the pricing of drugs, one does know, if it goes south now. And anyone earning over 4 million dollars a year gets a huge tax break, and that’s 0.1per cent of the population.
It’s in this context that one has to see how mindset of Tesla boss and close friend of Trump works now. The tech mogul’s remarks in the interview also come as he has suggested he would be backing away from his administration role to return his attention to the private sector. Musk said in a post on X last week that he had to be “super focused” on his companies and was “back to spending 24/7 at work and sleeping in conference/server/factory rooms.”
Medicaid, Medicare, and Obamacare are distinct but related healthcare programs. Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) provide health coverage for low-income individuals and families, while Medicare primarily serves people age 65 and older and some individuals with disabilities. The Affordable Care Act (ACA), often referred to as Obamacare, expanded health insurance access through the Health Insurance Marketplace and Medicaid expansion.
While Musk was highly enthused about Trump about reducing expenditure and reduce the deficit in the budget, it’s not working that way. Not only is the work he was doing in DOGE being undone by Trump with his domestic policies that was not putting in place a watertight scheme that brings in more revenue and compensates for Trumps tax cuts.
DOGE cuts down heavily on government jobs considered redundant and saves expenditure, but Trump’s budget effects huge tax cuts on the bold and beautiful rich people and does not bring in the revenue needed, the cuts in government jobs, health care are not being compensates in an equal measure by increased revenues which is leading to the deficit – back to square one of Biden.
Musk, a Trump ally and top White House figure, has also distanced himself from the president on his tariff policies. Musk, whose automaker Tesla has parts made in North America, China and Europe, has called for a “zero-tariff situation” between Europe and the U.S., and positioned himself as an advocate of “free trade and lower tariffs.” (IPA Service)
