Musk slams Trump trade advisor Navarro, mocks made-up economist
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The news: Elon Musk on Tuesday called Donald Trump’s top trade adviser Peter Navarro a “moron” and “dumber than a sack of bricks”, in the most public display to date of apparent strain between the US president and the world’s richest man.
The context: Navarro, a long-time Trump ally who served four months in jail for contempt of Congress, remains central to Trump’s trade policy.
The clash came as Tesla stock has fallen more than 40% this year, with Musk estimated to have lost roughly USD31 billion since Trump’s tariff announcement.
It also followed Navarro’s claim that Musk is “not a car manufacturer” but a “car assembler” who uses “cheap foreign parts”, including batteries from Japan and China and electronics from Taiwan.
Musk rejected the criticism as “demonstrably false” and mocked Navarro for in the past citing the work of “Ron Vara” — a fictional economics expert quoted in his books, whose name is an anagram of his own.
The fake expert was used in a memo circulated in Washington after Trump’s election, promoting tariffs with lines such as “ride the tariffs to victory”.
Musk had earlier called for a “zero-tariff situation” with Europe, saying this would “effectively create a free-trade zone” and eliminate trade barriers.
Last month, Tesla warned in an unsigned letter to US trade representative Jamieson Greer that a trade war could make the company a target for retaliatory tariffs and raise the cost of making vehicles in America.
On Monday (Tuesday AEST) Musk’s brother Kimbal, who sits on the boards of Tesla and SpaceX, criticised the tariffs as a “structural, permanent tax on the American consumer” and warned they would reduce consumption and jobs.
What they said: The White House downplayed the dispute, with press secretary Karoline Leavitt saying, “boys will be boys.”
The sources: Elon Musk post, Bloomberg, The New York Times
