An apparent rift between Trump advisers Elon Musk and Peter Navarro, who are on opposite sides of the spirited tariff policy debate in the president’s orbit, continued on Tuesday as Musk posted on social media that “Navarro is truly a moron.” Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX (SPAX.PVT) in addition to serving under President Trump as a special government employee, is opposed to Trump’s tariff policy while Navarro is a staunch supporter of the approach. For rolling updates on tariffs, check out our live blog here. Over the weekend, Musk posted that “a PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing” and went even further in a now-deleted post, using an expletive to say Navarro hasn’t built anything. On Monday, Navarro, whose official title is senior counselor to the president for trade and manufacturing — told Fox News that “Elon sells cars” and is “simply protecting his own interests.” He also told CNBC: “We all understand in the White House, and the American people understand, that Elon is a car manufacturer. But he’s not a car manufacturer — he’s a car assembler.”
On Tuesday morning, in response to the CNBC clip, Musk tweeted: “Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false.” A few minutes later, he added: “Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.” Musk’s criticism of US tariff policy is a notable shift from avoiding the tariff topic entirely for years. Musk issued a series of posts in recent days that offered pointed support of global trade and open markets and pointed out that Tesla could be hurt by tariffs. Navarro, in an op-ed published in the Financial Times, asserted that the international trade system “is broken — and Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariff doctrine will fix it.” Read more: Trump’s economic team faces flood of tariff critiques — even from top White House allies Ben Werschkul contributed to this post.
