Musk 'disappointed' by Trump's 'great and beautiful' budget law

Billionaire Elon Musk, who recently stepped back from his mission to cut US federal spending, criticized the "great and beautiful" budget bill pushed by his ally Donald Trump, denouncing the widening of the public deficit it would cause.

"I was disappointed to see this massive spending bill, frankly, that increases the budget deficit," the richest man on the planet said in an interview with CBS News, a clip of which aired Tuesday night. The "big, beautiful bill," as Donald Trump has dubbed it, is currently making its way through Congress and aims to implement some of the Republican's most important campaign promises, such as extending his gigantic "Trump tax credits," which were passed during his first term and expire at the end of the year.

According to an analysis by a nonpartisan congressional agency, the bill as it stands would increase the federal deficit by $3.8 trillion over the next decade. "I think a law can be great or it can be beautiful. But I don't know if it can be both," Musk said in his CBS News interview, which will air in full on Sunday.

In another interview with the Washington Post published Tuesday, the Tesla and SpaceX boss also discussed his time in Washington and his work with the Doge Commission, tasked by Donald Trump with slashing government spending. "The federal bureaucracy is much worse than I thought," he said. "I knew there were problems, but it's really an obstacle course trying to improve things in Washington," he added.

The South African-born entrepreneur had been very prominent during the first weeks of Trump's second presidency before announcing in late April that he would step back to focus more on his businesses, notably Tesla. He acknowledged in early May that Doge had not fully achieved his initial goals, despite dismissing thousands of civil servants and disbanding or minimizing several public agencies.

Elon Musk told the Washington Post that he would continue working with Doge, but would focus on improving the federal government's IT systems rather than reducing staff.