Last Updated on 7 days by Ashley Michael
Elon Musk once again attacked President Donald Trump‘s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, on Tuesday, calling him a “moron” on his social media X platform, as the Tesla CEO continues to criticize the White House’s tariff strategy.
Musk says that “Tesla has the most American-made cars” adding that Navarro is “dumber than a sack of bricks.”
Elon Musk’s comments were a reaction to Navarro’s Interview on CNBC on Monday,
on this interview about 14.44s Navarro talked about Elon Musk and Doge saying that, Musk and his Doge team is making a contribution to America in terms of waste, fraud and abuse. And that’s a very good thing for this country and the American people when it comes to tariffs and trade.
Then Navarro described Tesla as more of a “car assembler” than a full-fledged automaker, saying that Elon He’s a car assembler, but he’s not a car manufacturer. In many cases,
If you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that that he gets, which in the EV case is the batteries come from Japan and come from China, the electronics come from Taiwan,
And the difference is in our thinking in Elon Musk’s on this, is that we want the tires made in Akron. We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here.
It’s like this business model where BMW and Mercedes come in to Spartanburg, South Carolina and have us assemble German engines and Austrian transmissions. That doesn’t work for America. It’s bad for our economics. It’s bad for our national security. We want them to come here.
And with Elon Musk, it’s fine. He’s a car man. He’s a car person. That’s what he does. And he wants the cheap foreign parts and we understand that. But we want him home.
a point that contradicts Trump’s approach to tariffs. The discussion follows Trump’s announcement of broad tariffs on several countries, a move that has rattled markets and could drive up car prices by thousands of dollars.
Tesla has consistently led Cars.com‘s American Manufacturing Index since 2021, which considers factors such as assembly location, parts origin, engine and transmission sourcing, and the size of the U.S. workforce. Despite this, Elon Musk has acknowledged that Tesla is still affected by tariffs. “The impact of tariffs on Tesla is still significant,” he noted on X last month.
On Tuesday, Musk also referenced Navarro’s educational background, posting (and later deleting) that his Harvard PhD is “a bad thing” and Saying that he hasn’t “built anything.”
Navarro, however, downplayed the dispute, telling CNBC on Monday, “Everything’s cool with Elon, no problem.”
Musk has also expressed disagreement with Trump on tariffs in general, sharing videos supporting free trade and saying at an event in Italy that he believes there should be zero tariffs between the U.S. and Europe.
According to The Washington Post, Elon Musk even made a “direct appeal” to Trump on the matter.
Elon Musk made direct yet unsuccessful appeals to the U.S. President Donald Trump to reverse tariffs over the past weekend, Washington Post reported on Monday
While this isn’t the first time Musk has opposed Trump’s policies or appointments, the clash over tariffs marks a significant point of divergence between Trump and one of his most prominent supporters.
The White House, for its part, appears unfazed by the public dispute. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt commented during a briefing Tuesday: “Obviously, these are two people with very different views on trade and tariffs. Men will be men, and we will allow their public clashes to continue.” She added:
“This also demonstrates the president’s willingness to listen to all sides, the fact that he has people at the highest levels of this administration, in this White House, with very diverse views on very diverse issues.”