House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., texted with former Department of Government Efficiency chief Elon Musk on Wednesday night and spoke with him Thursday morning, but the message was not received well when the speaker provided insight on how things work in budget reconciliation.
“Elon’s a good friend: We texted late last night; we’re going to talk this morning,” Johnson told Bloomberg TV on Thursday morning. “He seems pretty dug in right now, and I can’t quite understand the motivation behind it.”
Musk this week continued to object to the reconciliation budget legislation that Congress is considering, urging Americans to tell lawmakers to “kill the bill” that is the signature piece of President Donald Trump’s second term.
“I just want to make sure that he understands what I think everybody on Capitol Hill understands: This is not a spending bill, my friends; this is a budget reconciliation bill,” Johnson said. “And what we’re doing here is delivering the America First agenda.
“This is all of the president’s priorities and all the priorities of the Republican Party, everything we promised the American people. That is what we are delivering with this piece of legislation.”
Musk, who was new to government and parliamentary procedure, does not understand how Congress works, according to Johnson.
“The reason we’re using the reconciliation process is because that is the only way to get around the 60-vote threshold in the Senate,” Johnson said. “Everybody probably recognizes that Chuck Schumer and the Democrats are in no mood and not going to be helpful in delivering President Trump’s agenda for the people.
“We have to do it this way. We can do it with 51 votes in the Senate only, and that’s the urgency of the hour, and we have to do it quickly for all the reasons we can discuss this morning.”
Johnson said he tried to explain to Musk how the bill cannot cut discretionary spending through reconciliation, since Democrats and slim majorities require it to order to “start the process” with the “big first step” of “historic tax cuts, but historic savings as well.”
“He seems to miss that,” Johnson said of Musk, pointing to the fact the One Big Beautiful Bill Act “saves $1.6 trillion with a T” and there “never has been a bill to save that in the history of this earth.”
“I’ve told Elon and tell everyone: ‘This is the first of a series of steps that we will take to bring that debt under control,'” Johnson said. “But you can’t turn it on a dime. It took us decades to get into this situation, so we have to do it incrementally. And this is a huge step forward in that endeavor.”
Johnson demurred on sharing Musk’s “motivations” but he did say there are “other things” impacting Musk’s public rantings and outcry.
“I’ll let everybody draw their own conclusions about Elon’s motivations, but I’ll tell you obvious that the EV mandate going away is, I’m sure, a concern for the leader of Tesla, and other things as well,” Johnson said.
Johnson stressed the importantce of the bill, as House Republicans have spent “over a year to develop this piece of legislation” with work of “11 different committees.”
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