Donald Trump’s “Big, Beautiful Bill” has been narrowly passed by the Senate — following hours of haggling that went late into the night.
It was a close one, with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote to get the legislation over the line.
All eyes now turn to the House of Representatives, where Trump’s legislation could face staunch opposition — plunging the president’s ambition of getting the bill on his desk by July 4 into serious doubt.
At this point, it’s worth looking at what the “Big Beautiful Bill” consists of. For one, generous tax cuts introduced during Trump’s first term would be extended, with critics arguing they disproportionately benefit America’s highest earners. Tips would no longer be taxable, which could be a game-changer for the service sector.
Beyond taxation, there would be aggressive new investment to finance mass deportations and substantial cuts to Medicaid, with the debt ceiling raised to $5 trillion. That’s where Elon Musk comes in.
‘The PORKY PIG PARTY!!’
You’ll remember that, at the very start of Trump’s second term, Elon Musk had a substantial new role heading up the Department of Government Efficiency — otherwise known as DOGE for short, a nod to Dogecoin.
His brief was simple: to slash as much federal spending as possible. At the start of June, he described the “Big Beautiful Bill” as a “disgusting abomination” because it would undo a lot of his work in cutting costs. (There are doubts about how effective his efforts have actually been.)
They both began trading blows on social media in an “inevitable” fallout, with the Musk claiming the president’s name is in the Epstein files, and Trump threatening to axe the world’s richest man’s lucrative government contracts.
Both sides later appeared to call a truce — with Musk admitting some of his posts had gone too far — but as this controversial bill moves closer and closer to reality, the Tesla CEO and X owner once again started criticizing the White House.
Musk has floated this idea before — and the latest odds from Polymarket suggest there’s a 46% chance this will happen by the end of 2025. But in a new twist, he’s also threatened to name and shame those who support the “Big Beautiful Bill” during the midterms, a U-turn given he had pledged to back away from politics.
And in a rather significant escalation, the president even suggested he was planning to “take a look” at deporting Musk — something that his former adviser Steve Bannon had called for a few weeks ago.
While it’s probably unlikely that this would happen, the resumption of open hostilities has been enough to spook Tesla investors. The electric vehicle manufacturer’s stock had dropped 6.1% in the middle of Tuesday’s session on Wall Street — with Bitcoin also down a modest 1% and trading at about $106,000.
