Musk criticizes Trump for his trade war
23 April 19:52
Oligarch Elon Musk, who plans to leave the White House in May and return to business, criticized Trump for his trade war, Komersant ukrainskyi reports.
“I have said many times that I think low tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity. But this decision is fundamentally up to the elected representative of the people, who is the president. I will continue to advocate for lower tariffs, not higher tariffs,” Musk said, according to the Last Capitalist telegram channel.
This is not the first time Musk has criticized Trump for imposing tariffs, and it is also the first time he has publicly disagreed with the US president since he won the election.
Shortly before that, Trump announced that Musk would soon leave his position in the newly created Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE).
After the United States imposed tariffs against nearly 200 countries, Elon Musk’s assets decreased by $31 billion. Although he remains the richest man in the world by a wide margin, his fortune has fallen below $300 billion for the first time since November 2024.
Currently, Elon Musk’s net worth is $298 billion. He is followed by Amazon owner Jeff Bezos ($196 billion) and Meta owner Mark Zuckerberg ($183 billion). Trump’s decision to start a trade war with the rest of the world cost Bezos and Zuckerberg a lot of money. However, none of them has lost as much as Elon Musk in recent weeks.
Last Saturday, Musk publicly stated that tariffs between the US and Europe hurt all parties.
“I hope that everyone agrees that both Europe and the United States should, ideally, in my opinion, move to a zero-tariff situation. We should create a free trade area between Europe and North America. This was my advice to the president,” Elon Musk said.
Musk’s statements are in stark contrast to Trump’s own position on US-EU trade.
Earlier, the United States imposed 20 percent tariffs on imports of all goods from the EU.
“They are ripping us off. It’s so sad to see. It’s just pathetic,” Trump said, commenting on his decision to impose tariffs on the EU.
Despite his dissatisfaction with the American president’s recent decisions, Elon Musk still refrains from personal criticism of Donald Trump in public.
However, he does not hesitate to sharply criticize Trump’s chief economic adviser, Peter Navarro, whom the American press calls the architect of the White House’s radical tariff policy.
Elon Musk openly ridiculed Navarro’s level of economic education.
