Billionaire presidential adviser Elon Musk attacked White House trade adviser Peter Navarro as “dumber than a sack of bricks” as a fight over president Donald Trump’s tariff regime spilled onto social media on Tuesday.
In a flurry of posts on his social media platform X, Mr Musk called Mr Navarro “truly a moron” and mocked him for in the past citing the work of “Ron Vara” – a fictional expert whose name is an anagram of his own.
The missives were the latest volley in an increasingly bitter spat between the two that broke out after Mr Trump last week announced he was imposing a minimum 10 per cent tariff on most imports, with additional levies on about 60 countries that have larger trade deficits with the US. The announcement was seen as a policy win for Mr Navarro, who has advocated aggressive trade measures in hopes of helping to boost domestic manufacturing.
Shortly after the announcement, Mr Musk jabbed at Mr Navarro by saying his degree in economics from Harvard is “a bad thing, not a good thing”, and criticising him for not having built companies on his own.
Mr Navarro, in a subsequent interview with CNBC, said the criticism was not surprising from the Tesla chief executive because he was a “car assembler” who used parts from other countries.
“When it comes to tariffs and trade, we all understand in the White House – and the American people understand – that Elon is a car manufacturer, but he’s not a car manufacturer. He’s a car assembler,” Mr Navarro said.
“He’s a car person. That’s what he does, and he wants the cheap foreign parts,” he added.
Those claims earned Mr Musk’s ire. In addition to the personal attacks, Mr Musk defended Tesla as “the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content”.
With large plants in California and Texas, Tesla builds all the cars it sells in the US domestically. That is in contrast to larger car-makers such as Stellantis NV and General Motors, which import more than 40 per cent of the vehicles sold in the US, according to figures from Global Data.
Between 60 and 75 per cent of the components Tesla uses are manufactured domestically, depending on the model, according to a 2024 filing by the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, with the majority of the remaining parts sourced from Mexico.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt downplayed the disagreement on Tuesday, telling reporters that “boys will be boys” and the administration “will let their public sparring continue”.
“Look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs,” Ms Leavitt said.
“You guys should all be very grateful that we have the most transparent administration in history, and I think it also speaks to the president’s willingness to hear from all sides,” she continued. - Bloomberg
