 "Elon Musk. Image Credit: Reuters")
Tech-billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk made direct yet unsuccessful appeals to US President Donald Trump to reverse tariffs over the past weekend, the Washington Post reported on Monday, citing two people familiar with the matter.
This exchange marks the highest profile disagreement between the President and Musk, the report said. It follows Trump’s unveiling of a 10% baseline tariff on all imports to the US along with higher duties on dozens of other countries.
Musk’s efforts have yet to yield any results, according to two people with knowledge of the private discussions. On Monday, Trump escalated the situation by threatening to impose an additional 50% tariff on Chinese imports on top of the 34% levies announced the previous week. However, the president did indicate he was open to negotiating certain elements of the policy.
In one of his posts on X, Musk shared a video featuring the late economist Milton Friedman, who emphasized the advantages of global trade through what he called “the impersonal operation of prices,” using the manufacturing of a wooden pencil as an example.
This policy dispute represents the most prominent rift to date between Musk and Trump. It involves one of Trump’s influential advisers, who contributed close to $290 million to support Trump and other Republican candidates during last year’s elections and has been overseeing cost-cutting measures at the US DOGE Service since January.
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More ShortsMusk has previously clashed with other Trump allies over issues such as H1-B visas for skilled workers and the DOGE Service’s fiscal strategy.