Concerned with Federal Spending Deficit, Elon Musk Urges Senate not to Pass the Build Back Better Bill, ‘Seems Pretty Crazy’

On Monday, Elon Musk joined the WSJ’s CEO council summit via video. The first question he was asked, “Say tomorrow you get a phone call from Joe Biden and he says.” Elon interjected, “I think that’s unlikely but sure.” he and the audience laugh. The host continues, “He just gives you a call and he says, ‘I haven’t been talking about Tesla a lot lately but what do you need from this bill, what are your needs?’ What do you answer him?” Elon looks away for a moment and starts, “Well um, to be totally frank I… I don’t know if we, well at least no one at Tesla brought up whether we care about this bill or not. I think if this bill happened or didn’t happen I don’t know, we don’t think about it at all really.“

The host seemed surprised and replied, “Okay” and nodded as some in the audience giggled at his response. Musk wasn’t done. Musk then replied, “Honestly, It might be better if the bill doesn’t pass. Um, we’ve [Federal Government] spent so much money you know it’s like the federal budget deficit is insane. You know it’s like three trillion dollars. Federal expenditures are seven trillion, federal revenue is four trillion. That’s a three trillion dollar difference. If this was a company it would be a three trillion dollar loss. So, I don’t know if we should be adding to that loss, that seems pretty crazy.”

A little while later Musk brings up the infrastructure bill again, “Going back to the infrastructure bill, there’s this idea that Tesla always gets subsidies, but it’s important to note that the vehicle purchase tax credit that $7,500, Tesla stop getting that like 2 years ago. Everyone else, except for GM, still get the federal tax credit. So all of our sales from this year and last year had nothing to do with the tax credit because we were no longer eligible because we made so many electric cars. Tesla has made roughly two-thirds of all the electric cars in the United States. I am not sure if most people are aware of that. We don’t need the $7,500 tax credit. I would say… can the whole bill. Don’t pass it, that’s my recommendation.”

“Honestly, I would just can this whole bill.” Tesla CEO Elon Musk criticized federal efforts meant to spur electric-vehicle adoption, including a bill that would boost incentives for buying battery-powered cars #WSJWhatsNow pic.twitter.com/yeiEt1CcZt

— The Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) December 7, 2021

It seems like WSJ’s seemingly light-hearted question of what do you want from the infrastructure bill put a bad taste in Musks’ mouth. He doesn’t like the reckless spending the federal government is doing, as he pointed out if it were a company it would be posting a 3 trillion dollar loss.

Currently, Democrats are pushing hard to get the bill passed in the Senate, seemly so that Joe Biden has some kind of accomplishment to talk about during his state of the union address. Biden’s approval ratings are in the tank and many people around the country feel like the Biden Administration has no interest in the common man only touting fringe ideas and open-border policy, begrudgingly and half-heartedly reimplementing the ‘Remain in Mexico’ policy from the Trump presidency.

Currently, Joe Manchin seems opposed to passing the Build Back Better act in its current state. Only time will tell if Manchin continues to stand against excessive spending regardless of the claims from the Biden Administration that the bill is a net-zero.