Elon Musk took multiple shots at Peter Navarro in reaction to a clip of the trade advisor defending President Donald Trump’s tariffs amid steep declines in the stock market.
Musk has remained fairly silent on Trump’s tariff announcement as stocks, including Musk’s, have taken major hits. Tesla stock fell 10% by Friday, erasing billions in Musk’s wealth. Markets closed on Friday with the week marking the worst trading week in five years.
Navarro, a senior counselor to the president, has been among the White House officials passionately defending the tariff strategy, insisting a manufacturing boom in the United States is on the way.
In multiple X posts, Musk replied to a CNN clip of Navarro defending the tariff strategy by calling out Navarro for not building “shit” and mocking his education.
In the clip, Navarro spoke with CNN’s Phil Mattingly and argued that past trade deals transferred too much “wealth” abroad.
Navarro argued:
Here’s the analytical issue we’re trying to do under the principle that the president wants to charge those countries what they charge us. As you pointed out, Vietnam has an applied tariff rate that’s much larger than ours, but doesn’t come near the tariff we charge them, so the question is how do you value the following, Phil. So let me count the ways. You’ve got to value currency manipulation, you’ve got to value the VAT tax distortions, dumping, export subsidies, technical barriers of trade, agricultural barriers to trade, quotas, bans, counterfeiting, intellectual property theft, and all of that. So here’s the punchline. If you look at the trade deficit… should the U.S. have chronic and sustained deficits? They should not.
Musk was apparently left unimpressed with the fellow Trump advisor.
“A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing. Results in the ego/brains>>1 problem,” Musk wrote in a reply to the clip of Navarro.
In response to someone arguing that Navarro is “correct” in his analysis, Musk simply wrote, “He ain’t built shit.”
In a Saturday interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish, Navarro again argued that the drop in the markets is part of a “restructuring” of the economy.
“Trust in Trump,” Navarro said, insisting “everything’s going to be fine,” especially if the media “calms down” over plummeting stocks.
Watch above via CNN.
