SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk sparred on social media Tuesday with White House Senior Counselor Peter Navarro, after Navarro said in an interview Monday that Tesla was a car “assembler” rather than a manufacturer.
“Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks,” Musk said in an X post on Tuesday.
“Navarro is truly a moron,” Musk said in a separate post. “What he says here is demonstrably false.”
Both Navarro and Musk are two of Trump’s closest advisors, and Navarro previously served in Trump’s first administration as the director of the White House National Trade Council and the director of the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy.
Musk is currently spearheading the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency initiative to curb government waste and spending as a “special government employee.”
The executive or legislative branches are permitted to take on temporary employees to address short-term projects for up to 130 days in a single 365-day period, which will expire at the end of May for Musk.
This is a breaking story and will be updated.