Musk Criticizes Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' Says It Will Undermine The Work of DOGE

Elon Musk, initially considered key to advancing President Donald Trump's agenda, criticized the GOP's "big, beautiful bill," saying it will undermine the work of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by raising the U.S. budget deficit.

Musk's comments took place during a media tour ahead of a SpaceX test flight Tuesday evening. He reiterated there he was stepping away from federal government duties to focus on his companies, including SpaceX and Tesla.

"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 tech billionaire, who is the richest person in the world, told "CBS Sunday Morning." "I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don't know if it can be both."

Trump's bill includes trillions of dollars in tax cuts and a big boost to the U.S. military and to national security spending— largely paid by overhauls to federal health and nutrition programs and cuts to energy programs, CNN reports. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would pile another $3.8 trillion to the deficit. It is currently heading to the Senate, where it will likely face many changes, including from key Republicans, after narrowly passing the House last week.

In a separate interview, the entrepreneur also lamented what had become of DOGE, which he led for months and sought to dramatically slash federal spending. On Tuesday, he said the initiative's goal proved far tougher than he expected due to "federal bureaucracy."

"The federal bureaucracy situation is much worse than I realized," he said. "I thought there were problems, but it sure is an uphill battle trying to improve things in D.C., to say the least."

Musk added that repercussions over DOGE cuts had been severe. "DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything," he said. "So, like, something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it."

Because of that, the billionaire— a key donor for the Trump campaign in the 2024 cycle— said he would step away from politics, noting that he'll spend "a lot less" money supporting candidates and instead be fully present in his companies' operations. It remains unclear, however, whether the remarks signal any change in his pledge to commit $100 million into political groups controlled by the president.

To demonstrate this point, Musk said in an interview ahead of the SpaceX launch: "I'm physically here. This is the focus, and especially around launch. Everything comes together at the moment of launch." Notably, his signature look of the "Dark MAGA" cap, the black blazer and the belligerence toward his perceived foes in Congress were all gone during his recent media interactions.

Still, Musk vowed that while he may be stepping away from the D.C. spotlight, his work with DOGE is not fully finished. He said he plans to focus DOGE's efforts on improving the federal bureaucracy's computer systems, a less-controversial goal than taking a chainsaw to the workforce, according to The Washington Post.

"There's, like, so many situations where the computers are so broken," he said. "Even in the intelligence world," where in order to transfer "data from one computer to another, you have to print it out and then type it into the next computer. And this is just literally a thing that was brought to my attention."

The effort will now be focused "a bit more like tackling projects with the highest gain for the pain, which still means a lot of good things in terms of reducing waste and fraud."