Elon Musk’s criticism of House Republicans’ “big, beautiful bill” has left some GOP lawmakers frustrated at the tech billionaire.
“This is why Mr. Musk has no place in Congress,” one House GOP lawmaker, granted anonymity to speak freely, told Fox News Digital. “He wants to codify discretionary cuts. He didn’t find enough waste, fraud, and abuse to fund [the Small Business Administration], let alone reduce our debt.”
“This was a gimmick. He got used. He’s now upset. He played the game, he got what he wanted, then he ended up like everyone else who gets too close.”
House Republicans passed a broad-ranging bill last week advancing President Donald Trump’s agenda on tax, immigration, defense, and energy. Congressional Republicans are hoping to pass it via the budget reconciliation process, a mechanism for passing fiscal legislation while waiving the Senate’s 60-vote threshold and sidelining the minority party.
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Musk told “CBS Sunday Morning” the legislation “undermines the work” done by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
He called it a “massive spending bill” that “increases the budget deficit.”
However, Republican supporters of the bill have contended that the kind of spending cuts Musk is looking for, and the kind DOGE outlined, cannot be done via the reconciliation process. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., himself pledged in a public statement after Musk’s comments that House Republicans would tackle DOGE cuts – albeit in a different vehicle than the “big, beautiful bill.”
Reconciliation primarily deals with mandatory government funding that Congress must change by amending the law itself, like federal safety net programs.
The White House is also planning to send a package of proposed spending cuts to Congress next week, including cuts outlined by DOGE, that target discretionary government spending. Discretionary spending refers to the cash flows that Congress controls annually via the budget appropriations process.
Other supporters of the bill, like Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said its focus was on people outside of Musk’s wealth class.
“The bill strikes the proper balance between rooting out fraud to achieve savings and not impacting citizens who rely on government programs. The biggest winners for a change are not billionaires like Musk but middle-class families who will see the bulk of savings returned to them in the form of real tax relief,” Malliotakis told Fox News Digital.
“That’s who President Trump and House Republicans set out to help.”
A second House Republican who requested anonymity to speak freely told Fox News Digital that Musk did “put a lot of work in” with DOGE but argued he was wrong on the facts.
“I mean, it wouldn’t be the first time that he didn’t really have a handle on the process,” the House Republican said. “So, you know, we really have to bake the DOGE cuts into the budget rather than through reconciliation.”
Fox News Digital reached out to Musk for comment via Tesla but did not immediately hear back.
The White House pointed Fox News Digital to Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s public statement about fiscal hawks’ concerns about the bill.
Miller said, “DOGE cuts are to discretionary spending. (Eg the federal bureaucracy). Under Senate budget rules, you cannot cut discretionary spending (only mandatory) in a reconciliation bill. So DOGE cuts would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill. The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government. It does not finance our agencies or federal programs. Instead, it includes the single largest welfare reform in American history.”
On the other side of the House GOP Conference, fiscal hawks who also had issues with the legislation rallied around Musk’s comments.
“I share Mr. Musk’s concerns about the short-term adverse effect on the federal deficit of the limited spending reductions in the BBB. Debt markets remain concerned about US total debt and annual deficits,” said House Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris, R-Md.
The Maryland Republican voted “present” on the reconciliation bill last week.
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“Hopefully the Senate will take those concerns into consideration as the legislative process moves forward,” Harris said.
Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, the lone House Republican to vote against the bill, posted on X, “Hopefully, the Senate will succeed where the House missed the moment. Don’t hope someone else will cut spending someday, know it has been done this Congress.”
“Despite pleas to step back and look at the sum of the parts passed by 11 different committees, this bill was rushed to the floor when it should have been fixed,” Davidson said.
Musk announced late on Wednesday that he was stepping away from his federal government role because his “scheduled time as a Special Government Employee” was coming “to an end.”
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