Elon Musk hit President Trump's best commercial adviser on Tuesday as “stupid than a bag of bricks”, which revealed a remarkable gap in the inner circle of the president over the broad rates that the world economy increased.
De Veign between Mr. Musk and Peter Navarro, who has been the architect of many of Mr Trump's trading plans, has been simmering for days because the new rates of the administration have caused enormous losses in the worldwide financial markets.
Until now, Mr. Trump has not weighed the collision between his top employees, whom he both claims to keep to a large extent. But the words of Mr. Musk – although aimed at Mr Navarro – were a rare criticism of Mr Trump's policy of one of his most influential advisers.
Musk, the richest man in the world, is estimated to be lost about $ 31 billion since Mr Trump announced radical rates for abroad on 2 April, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
The bickering escalated on Monday when Mr. Navarro said on CNBC that Mr. Musk was not a “car manufacturer”, but a “car -assembler” because Tesla, Mr. Musk's Electric Vehicle Company, trusted in parts from all over the world.
Mr. Musk shot back on Tuesday and called Mr. Navarro an “idiot” and “stupid then a bag of stones” in a post on X, the social media site he owns. Later in the day, Mr. Musk and placed that he “apologized to bricks”.
“That was so unfair for bricks,” wrote Mr. Musk. He also used a blemish to go to Mr. Navarro to refer and called him 'Peter Retarrdo'.
Karoline Leavitt, the Secretary of the White House, tried to play down the feud.
“Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparrots continue,” she told reporters.
Mr Navarro ignored questions from reporters in the White House on Tuesday afternoon about the messages from Mr. Musk on social media.
Mr. Trump has long allowed and promoted the conflict between his top advisers, but it is unusual that Animus plays so publicly among assistants. Mr Navarro was a senior officer on trade issues during the first term of Mr Trump and then remained loyal to the president, even by spending four months in prison after being convicted for contempt for the congress because he refused to testify in her investigation into the Capitool's investigation.
Mr. Musk, an important member of the president's inner circle who has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to support his presidential campaign, is usually an avid supporter of Mr Trump's policy. But the rates have been an exception.
Mr. Musk has rejected Mr Trump's approach and has called for “zero rates” between the United States and Europe. He has Mr. Navarro punished for having a Ph.D. In Harvard's economy, writing that “a bad thing was, not a good thing,” and then posting that Mr. Navarro 'nothing built', with the help of an expletive. (He deleted the second message later.)
Mr. Musk's brother, Kimbal, has also criticized the rates, placing a flurry of messages on X in recent days and defending his brother. He claimed that the president “had implemented a structural, permanent tax on American consumers.”
Mr. Musk often uses his X account to rinse his critics, insult them and to encourage his nearly 219 million followers to participate. Since he acquires Twitter and renamed it X, Mr. Musk has often focused on judges who have made statements about his companies with which he does not agree. And in recent months, Mr. Musk went to judges who have delayed or stopped his federal cost -saving efforts at the Ministry of Government efficiously.
Since Mr. Trump announced the rates last week, board officials have given various and sometimes conflicting statements in public about the president's plan. Mr Navarro has been determined: the rates are not negotiating tactics to win more favorable trade agreements with other countries. But Minister of Finance Scott Bessent has indicated that Mr Trump is open to negotiations while countries are flooding the White House with calls to discuss new deals.
“President Trump is, as you know, better than anyone else to give himself maximum leverage,” said Mr Bessent on Fox News.
Kate Conger And Maggie Haberman contributed reporting.
