Right wing billionaire Elon Musk lobbed fresh insults against White House trade adviser Peter Navarro amid Donald Trump’s global trade war.
On Tuesday, Musk fired back at Navarro’s claim that he is a “car assembler” who imports parts from overseas.
“If you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that he gets come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan,” Navarro said.
“Navarro is truly a moron,” Musk wrote in a post on X. “What he says here is demonstrably false.”
In another post, Musk said that “Tesla has the most American-made cars” and added that “Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.”
In follow up posts, Musk said Navarro should consult with “the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara,” a fictional economist Navarro cited in his books, and referred to him as “Peter Retarrdo.”
Musk has lost billions on his Tesla stock in the market crash that followed Trump’s announcement that he will be imposing a 10% tariff on some of US trading partners and more targeted tariffs on many countries, including 34% on China, 20% on the European Union, 46% on Vietnam and 32% on Taiwan.
Musk previously mocked Navarro, the architect of the policy, saying “A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing. Results in the ego/brains>>1 problem.” He also said Navarro “ain’t built shit.”
Navarro fired back saying Musk only cares about his interests.
“We just have to understand Elon sells cars and he’s, in Texas, assembling cars that have big parts of that car from Mexico, China, the batteries come from Japan or China, The electronics come from Taiwan. And he’s simply protecting his own interests as any business person would do,” Navarro said on Fox News Sunday. “We’re more concerned about Detroit building Cadillacs with American engines. And that’s what this is all about.”
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt dismissed the feud between Musk and Navarro telling CNBC, “Whatever. We are the most transparent administration in history, expressing our disagreements in public.”
