Peter Navarro, counselor to Trump and reportedly his top tariff proponent, is Elon Musk’s latest target. Chris Kleponis/CNP/ZUMA
Elon Musk has a new target—and it’s not trans people.
This time, he appears to be going after Peter Navarro, counselor to President Donald Trump, who reportedly played a key role in advocating for the tariffs that Trump introduced this week—and that economists say will kick off a trade war.
On Saturday, Musk responded to a clip of Navarro defending the tariffs on CNN, posted by someone on X by the name of Insurrectionist Barbie: “A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” Musk wrote. Navarro holds a PhD from Harvard.
In another post, responding to someone who claimed that Navarro is “100 percent correct” in his defense of the tariffs, Musk wrote: “He ain’t built shit.” Musk also offered responded to a graphic with a quote attributed to economist Thomas Sowell: “In every disaster throughout American history, there always seems to be a man from Harvard in the middle of it.” Musk replied simply: “Yup.”
Later on Saturday, Musk made some of his first public comments on Trump’s tarrifs while speaking at an event in Italy. He wants a “zero-tariff system” between the US and Europe to create “a free trade zone,” Bloomberg reported. “Both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation,” Musk reportedly told Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini.
Trump’s newly-launched tariff policy will give him a new way to dole out reward and punishment, as my colleague Pema Levy wrote recently. It’s no surprise that Musk is not a fan of tariffs, given the extensive business his companies do in countries around the world. But these are the first public indications that the unelected billionaire is not, in fact, in lock step with Trump on every issue, despite the White House’s claims to the contrary.
After a Politico report this week that claimed that Trump told his inner circle Musk will be stepping away from his role in the government soon, in part because some Trump allies reportedly see him as a political liability for Trump, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt called the story “garbage,” and Musk called it “fake news.” On Thursday, Trump defended Musk, telling reporters, “I want Elon to stay as long as possible”—but that was two days before Musk publicly attacked his top tariff guy.
Spokespeople for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Musk’s posts.
Navarro served on Trump’s 2016 campaign and in the White House during his first term, running the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy. Last year, he served four months in prison for contempt of Congress after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House January 6 committee. As my colleague Dan Friedman reported, he was released just in time to attend the Republican National Convention, where he told the crowd: “I went to prison so you won’t have to.”