Hard fight between Musk and Trump about the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’: what does it say in that tax plan, and what would be suspended about?

The alliance between Elon Musk and Donald Trump was splashed in a spectacular way on Thursday. Their disagreement of a budget and tax law for some time, by Trump de One Big Beautiful Bill named, during the day escalated to a quarrel fought in public (on X).

Since the House of Representatives assumed the proposal at the end of last month, Musk has strong criticism of the budget plan, which has to keep taxes low and important campaigners of the Republicans. The tech entrepreneur makes sure that Trumps legislative prestige project does not seriously reduce the enormous US national debt, but rises further.

Last week the two said festive farewell during a press conference in the White House. The President thanked Musk for the more than four months in which he would have helped bring the public finances in order as an extraordinary civil servant. Although the success of that austerity mission is disputed by critics, the two celebrated it as a great success and they divided as ‘friends’.

Less than a week later, the tone is much less friendly. Trump scammed on Thursday that Musk would only be critical because he misses the White House. The Tesla CEO would only act against this law, because it also in a tax credit for the purchase of e-cars. Trump stated that he had the law read to Musk in advance and that he had had nothing to say.

Musk firmly denied this in a message on X. He snarled that the law « was implemented in the middle of the night, so that nobody could even read it. » People’s representatives were indeed awake a day on May 22 when they were finally allowed to vote in the early morning. In feverish, nocturnal negotiations, the Republican budget and tax plan was still tinkered, which as a result swelled to more than eleven hundred pages. After enough struggling members of the government party had pays, the House of Representatives narrowly accepted (215 votes in favor, 214 against).

Musk is not the only one who has been criticized since then. Now that this is in the Senate, the legal text can really be read well. By the senators, by Republican delegates who already agreed, through the democratic opposition and by the outside world. And with that more careful lecture, several controversial provisions have emerged in the past two weeks. At least four parts of the so -called ‘OBBB’ harvesting criticism inside and outside the congress – and not just from Musk.

1
An increasing national debt

Tweet for Tweet, the billionaire Musk, who served for more than four months as Trumps cutbackser, raised the criticism of the government party and her budget plan this week. In a stream of messages on his social media platform X, he criticized the Republican proposal on Tuesday as ‘a disgusting horror’. He repeated his warnings that the American budget deficit (now more than 6.5 percent of GDP) remains too high. That the national debt gets too fastwhich means that the US will eventually go ‘bankrupt’. Musk shouted Republicans on the law in this form in torpedoing: « Kill the Bill« .

Anyone who votes for the plan can be challenged for primaries, he threatens. The man who grew into a republican top donor last year can add financial strength to this threat by sponsoring political campaigns of rivals.

He focuses on the edition side of Musks bright criticism. The proposal extends Trumps enormous tax cuts from 2017, which mainly benefited the richest Americans. And those lighting are only partially compensated with extra cuts on the social safety net, such as Zorgstraeld Medicaid and food voucher program Snap. According to the independent calculation masters of the congress, the OBBB will add $ 2,400 billion to the national debt in the coming ten years.

Musk calls the proposal “stuffed with porkThe latter is political jargon for the presents that political Washington distributes itself. In exchange for, for example, a local infrastructure project for their constituency skeptical congress members voted in with a proposal. That cow trade has made the savings that Mussk has recently been looking for his ‘Department for Government Efficiency’ in one fell swoop, he complains.

At the beginning of this week, Susten Republicans would still be angry, because subsidies for the energy transition from the previous Bides government are deleted, from which his plug car brand Tesla also benefits. But on Thursday, Trump suggested that the fastest way to put the budget in order is not to give Musk no more government jobs. For example, Musk is businesslike on the government for assignments for his space company SpaceX.

After Trumps swipe, the share of Tesla collapsed sharply at the fair. Later in the evening, Musk said that he could no longer take care of flights to the international space station ISS, as he did earlier this year to pick up two NASA astronauts.

2
A revenge tax

Musk and Trump are now fighting them in public. But the tech billionaire is not the only businessman whose resistance law encounters. For example, ‘Section 899’ of the Wall Street Bill lets down and alarm bells go off, the Financial Times Last Saturday. According to the business newspaper this specific provision remained ‘unjustified underexposed’ in the treatment by the house. Section 899 would give the US government the power to levy foreign investors and companies an additional tax on their investments in the US.

This will already be a so -called ‘revenge tax« called because it can be imposed on market parties from countries that themselves would levy » unfair foreign taxes.  » This would apply to most EU countries, but also the VK, Canada and Australia. With that, these ‘revenge tax’ echoed the ‘reciprocal import duties’ that Trump introduced at the beginning of April against dozens of trading partners who, according to him, disadvantage the US. The president retired that ‘Tariffs’ after growing market panic, but continues to threaten as a negotiating weapon in conversations about ‘fairer’ trade agreements.

Section 899 further puts pressure on the already uncertain investment climate in the US, critics say. And that at a time when Trump wants to tempt foreign companies to move production capacity to his country. Moreover, due to their growing debt, the US is now looking hard for buyers of government bonds, in which interest recently cools down. Musks prediction that the public finances will become untenable would accelerate themselves with this.

3
Free play for AI

The politician belongs to a completely different camp of Trumpism than Musk, but also Marjorie Taylor Greene criticized the law this week. The prominent Republican politician from southern Georgia did not hesitate to acknowledge that she had not completely explored the text of the passed law when she voted last month. For the radical Trumpista had known the content of pages 278 and 279, « I would have voted no, » she wrote on Tuesday on X With copies of the disputed passage.

This provision regulates that US states are not allowed to implement its own legislation in the coming ten years to restrict artificial intelligence. Republicans hate federal involvement and would like to give individual states more power, no less.

The determination in question was added to the proposal two days before the home mood. She seems to be attributed to the wish of the AI ​​lobby, which enjoys a lot of power within Trump-II. With his company Xai and Chatbot Grok, Musk is also active in the sector and invests heavily in it.

Taylor Greene, on the other hand, is considered an exponent of the radical-populistic Maga wing within Trumpism. She calls on the Senate to scrap the provision. « We have no idea what AI will be able to do in ten years, giving free play and restricting the power of states is potentially dangerous. »

4
No more tax on tips

The OBBB involves a huge transfer of prosperity from the poorest to the richest Americans. This also seems to be the reason that Musk (estimated private assets: approximately 380 billion) mainly criticizes the expenditure side of the law and not the persistent burden lighting for him and other super powerful people that she also arranges.

However, that is not as Trump puts the proposal on the market. His government prefers to explain one populist aspect of the plan: the abolition of the tax on tips and overtime. Trump launched that promise of ‘no tax on tips‘On campaign in Swing State Nevada, with its many casinos. But not only in Gokstad Las Vegas many people depend on tips, but also in the hospitality industry many employees receive a sub-minimum wage that they have to supplement with tips.

On the website of Het Witte Huis, there is recently a calculation tool with which people can calculate how much they improve if tips and overtime become untaxed. Trade unionsactivists for a ‘fair’ minimum wage and tax experts doubt However, whether employees benefit net so strongly.

The lowest income classes do not pay federal income tax, not even about tips. And there is the risk that employers (Trump himself was once a casinomagnate) further lower the already poor basic wage as soon as tips are no longer skilled by the tax authorities. This part of the law should in particular derive attention from the much greater tax reduction for billionaires such as Musk, of whom more generous donated to Trump last year.

Now to the Senate

He already hinted that former Trump confidence Musk criticized the law, but his pruning, open attacks on the president and his party are putting a highly unpredictable political process under high voltage. In the coming weeks, the Senate will still be debating the plan, with the aim of getting it to the vote before July 4 (Independence Day in the US). However, if the senators come with major adjustments, the house can also speak again.

With a majority in both rooms, it would be a blamage for Trump and his Republicans if this process is still derailing. But before he is on Trumps Bureau for signing, the legal text will certainly have to be embellished even further. When his criticism still sounded mild, Musk still had an advice on that at the end of last month: “A law is possible or piglist or beautiful His, « he laughed, » but not both.  »

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