Musk Reportedly Urged Trump to Backtrack on Tariffs
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
White House adviser and Tesla CEO Elon Musk personally appealed to President Donald Trump to change course on tariffs, according to The Washington Post.
It has not worked.
In a Rose Garden speech on Wednesday, Trump announced major tariffs on virtually all imports. That includes a baseline tariff of 10%, though he singled out dozens of countries for higher rates. That includes the European Union (20%) and China, which on Monday the president threatened with more tariffs, which could potentially mean a 104% rate on Chinese goods.
Over the weekend, Musk criticized White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, who have been fierce advocates of Trump’s tariffs.
“He aint [sic] build shit,” Musk tweeted of Navarro.
The Post reported:
Over the weekend, as Elon Musk launched into a barrage of social media posts criticizing one of the lead White House advisers for President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff plan, Musk was going over that same official’s head — and making personal appeals to Trump.
The attempted intervention, confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks, has not brought success so far; Trump threatened Monday to add new 50 percent tariffs on imports from China to go along with the 34 percent taxes he announced last week. (The president did signal he was open to negotiations on some aspects of his policy.) Musk, meanwhile, posted a video to X in which the late conservative economist Milton Friedman touted the benefits of international trade cooperation — “the impersonal operation of prices,” as he put it — breaking down the sources of the materials that go into a simple wooden pencil.
The publication went on to add that Musk told Italy’s deputy prime minister he would like to see a “free trade zone” encompassing Europe and the U.S., which would be directly at odds with Trump’s position.
The tariffs have roiled markets, including Tesla stock, which has shed nearly 18% over the last three trading sessions since Trump announced the tariffs.
In his announcement, Trump claimed that other nations had imposed drastically high tariffs on U.S. goods, which is why, the president said, “reciprocal” measures were necessary. However, those figures were arrived at by relying on an odd calculation that had nothing to do with what, if any tariffs had been imposed on U.S. products.
