WASHINGTON: Tech billionaire Elon Musk launched a series of social media posts on Monday lashing out at United States (US) President Donald Trump’s tax and spending bill and threatened politicians who vote for it with a primary challenge funded by the world’s richest man, German Press Agency (dpa) reported.
“Every member of Congress who campaigned on reducing government spending and then immediately voted for the biggest debt increase in history should hang their head in shame!” Musk wrote on his social media platform X.
“And they will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth.”
In another post, Musk attacked what he called “the Democrat-Republican uniparty” saying if “this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day.”
It is “time for a new political party that actually cares about the people,“ he wrote in yet another post, calling the United States a “one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!”
The dispute between Musk and Trump, which has escalated into an open war of words, was sparked by the tax and spending bill. The US president aims to use the legislation to fulfil key campaign promises, while Musk is calling for significantly deeper spending cuts.
The bill is currently being debated in the Senate. If it passes there, it must still get House of Representatives approval.
Trump has been advocating for the bill’s passage for weeks, applying pressure on critics within the Republican Party.
Fiscally conservative dissenters such as Musk have recently criticised the bill for not going far enough in cutting government spending and for increasing the debt ceiling.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office estimated that the Senate bill would add US$3.3 trillion to the budget deficit over the next 10 years.
