Two of President Trump’s top advisors are publicly grappling, with Elon Musk lambasting Peter Navarro as a “moron” who is “dumber than a sack of bricks.” The Tesla CEO’s Tuesday comments come a day after Navarro told CNBC that Musk is a “car assembler,” rather than a “car manufacturer.”
“Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false,” Musk posted on X in response to a clip of Navarro’s CNBC appearance. “Tesla has the most American-made cars.”
“By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of U.S. content, ” added Musk, who is spearheading the Department of Government Efficiency for President Donald Trump. “Navarro should ask the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara.”
That comment is a throwback dig at Navarro, who referenced economic guru “Ron Vara” in several of his books.
“But Ron Vara, it turns out, does not exist. At least not in corporeal form,” The New York Times reported in 2019. “He is apparently a figment of Mr. Navarro’s imagination — an anagram of Mr. Navarro’s surname that the trade adviser created as a Hitchcockian writing device and stuck with as something of an inside joke with himself.”
Musk’s barbs come as the two men are at odds over President Trump’s new “liberation day” tariff plan.
Navarro, who is serving as a senior trade advisor to the White House, helped the president craft his aggressive tariff policy, while Musk is said to be stealthily pushing back on the plan. The Washington Post reported on Monday that the billionaire urged President Trump to rethink his tariff policy last weekend, but was “ultimately unsuccessful.”
Musk’s comments also come a few days after he already mocked Navarro, saying he “ain’t built s–t.”
Tesla’s stock, following a few brutal days following the president’s tariff announcement, is up 6% in early trading on Tuesday. A number of other major tech and media companies are enjoying healthy gains upon reports that the president is looking to make trade deals with dozens of countries.
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