Musk moved his fight with Trump to tariffs: 'They will cause a recession in the second half of the year'

Elon Musk lashed out at Donald Trump's tariffs. Minutes after the fight between the two publicly broke out, the tycoon attacked the tariffs pushed by the White House. Although the owner of X was never a fan of trade barriers, he had tried to hide his opinions on the matter. That all changed when the fight finally broke out.

Musk responded to a user on his social network who posted, "Can I finally say that Trump's tariffs are super stupid?"

"Trump's tariffs will cause a recession in the second half of this year," Musk shot back, whose post quickly reached 20 million likes.

Until Musk departed from the government, Trump had listened to two more pro-market voices and two more protectionist ones to make economic and trade decisions. This is precisely the ideological tug-of-war in the current Republican Party. The first group consisted of Scott Bessent and Musk, while the second comprised Howard Lutnick and Peter Navarro.

The tycoon was always noted for opposing this agenda, even calling Navarro someone "dumber than a sack of bricks." Although Musk did not express everything he thought about the tariffs at the time, these public fights covered much of the media agenda in early April.