An apparent rift between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and the White House over trade policy appeared to have deepened on Tuesday after a top economic adviser to President Donald Trump suggested the electric car company was dependent on foreign auto parts.
Musk has emerged as a key player in the Trump administration, garnering praise from the president for scrutinizing federal bureaucracies for waste and fraud through the Department of Government Efficiency. But since the president unrolled steep global tariffs on April 2, Musk, who owns several multi-billion dollar companies in the U.S., has pushed back against the tariffs as barriers to free trade. His comments have led to repeated rebuffs from top Trump trade adviser Peter Navarro, who claimed the Tesla owner is resisting the tariffs because the parts for his electric vehicles are made, “in many cases,” in Japan and China.
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On Tuesday, Musk issued a scathing rebuttal of Navarro’s claims as “demonstrably false,” and calling Trump’s economic counselor “truly a moron.”
“Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks,” Musk said in a post to X. “By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content.”
He also pointed to a 2023 Cars.com study that found Tesla “builds the top four most American cars” when looking at assembly location, parts content, and labor force. The study counted Canada as part of the U.S. A 2024 study by American University’s Kogod School of Business similarly found that five of the 10 “most American” cars are Tesla products.
Musk’s comments were in response to a Monday appearance Navarro made on CNBC, where the advisor claimed that “the difference in thinking” between the Tesla founder and the White House on tariff policy came down to disagreements over whether products should be made in the U.S. or overseas.
“When it comes to tariffs and trade, we all understand in the White House, and the American people understand, that Elon’s a car manufacturer. But he’s not a car manufacturer — He’s a car assembler in many cases,” Navarro said. “ If you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that he gets, which in the EV case are the batteries, come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan… what we want — and the difference is in our thinking and Elon’s on this — is that we want the tires made in Akron. We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here.”
Although Navarro said that “everything’s good with Elon,” he insisted that the tariffs would stay in place.
“He’s a car person, that’s what he does. And he wants the cheap foreign parts, and we understand that, but we want them home,” Navarro said. “It’s for our national security and economic security, and everything’s good with Elon.”
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In response to Trump’s massive tariffs of up to 104% levies on China, and “Liberation Day” tariffs on a mass of countries, including allies such as Israel, Musk has agreed that there are “unfair trade practices” hurting the U.S.
Still, he has highlighted arguments from economist Milton Friedman that free trade is “essential” to the swift and cost-effective production of goods and services, as well as incentivizing global harmony.