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From the first time decades ago he was lampooned as a quirky upstart until now, the final stretch of his unprecedented fourth term as California’s governor, Jerry Brown has reveled in his reputation as a cheapskate.

“Nobody is tougher with a buck than I am,” he boasted during the 2010 campaign that sent him back to Sacramento.

Eight years later, Brown is poised to earn a place in the history books as the leader who helped right the ship of state. His mantra of measured spending could be a standard by which future governors are judged.

“We’re well positioned, but if the next governor doesn’t say ‘no’ at critical moments, things will get worse,” Brown said in an interview with The Times.

His promise of similar straight talk about California’s budget prevailed in the 2010 election, held in the shadow of financial collapse. The projected budget deficit he inherited — even after two years of cuts under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger — stood at $27 billion.

All of which seemed a distant memory Wednesday as Brown signed a budget creating a $13.8-billion cash reserve, the largest in state history. “I think people in California can be proud that we’re making progress,” the 80-year old Democrat said standing beside legislative leaders — the oldest of whom was only 12 when Brown was first elected governor in 1974.

Gov. Jerry Brown displays a playing card with his dog, Sutter, on it during his State of the State speech in 2014. The cards, handed out to legislators, urged them to save — not spend — all of the growing tax revenues.

(Rich Pedroncelli / AP )

While supporters tout his record on combating climate change or raising the minimum wage, the through line of Brown’s second chance as governor has always been the budget, a topic that demanded a fiscal reckoning just days after he took office.

“What surprised me was how deep the deficit became during Schwarzenegger’s last few years,” he said. “We had to get in there and cut, and find some new revenue and work it out the best way we could.”

Brown’s first moves in 2011 were to cancel new cell phones and government vehicles for state workers, political symbolism not unlike the bland Plymouth sedan he chose in the 1970s from the state vehicle pool. By spring, he convinced lawmakers to cut $8.2 billion from programs like higher education, daytime elderly care services and doctor visits for the poor.

When substantive efforts to solve the rest of the problem stalled that June, the governor did something his predecessors had never done: He vetoed the budget ratified by lawmakers.

“For a decade, the can has been kicked down the road and debt has piled up,” Brown said as he signed the veto message. “California is facing a fiscal crisis, and very strong medicine must be taken.”

The veto was a shot across the bow to the Legislature. “It communicated very clearly that there was going to be a minimum standard for the legislative budget, and they just couldn’t slap anything together and put the name ‘budget’ on it,” Brown says now.

“We were frustrated,” remembers John A. Pérez, who was Assembly speaker at the time. “But it laid the foundation for what has become eight years of on-time, balanced budgets.”

Deeper cuts ultimately were made. Within months, ratings agencies moved California’s credit outlook to positive, the beginning of a trend that has driven down interest rates for government borrowing, one way the state has saved money.

Gov. Jerry Brown’s wall of debt crumbles, but more walls are behind it »

He later turned his attention to the short-term obligations that piled up during the financial crisis, from raided school funds to Wall Street-backed deficit bonds. Branded by Brown as the state’s “wall of debt” and once towering at nearly $35 billion, today the balance is less than $5 billion.

“I tell my friends that Jerry Brown is one of the most fiscally conservative Democrats that I know,” said Connie Conway, a Tulare County Republican who served as Assembly GOP leader from 2010 to 2014. She recalls saying at one point that Brown “is the adult in the room because at least he’s admitting we have debt.”

Still, it was Republicans who handed Brown his first real budget setback in 2011, refusing to support a special statewide election to extend temporary taxes. The governor, never a back-slapping kind of politician, nonetheless mounted an intense charm offensive. He hosted private dinners for legislative Republicans where California wine flowed freely. He brought along his affable Corgi, Sutter, for visits. GOP lawmakers wouldn’t budge.

In hindsight, it was a lucky break. Special elections have historically had a disproportionately high turnout of conservative voters who likely would have rejected the plan. When Republicans balked, Brown and a coalition of business and labor leaders qualified a tax increase for the ballot in 2012, a presidential election year with strong turnout from Democrats.

Gov. Jerry Brown holds up a sign in support of Proposition 30 while visiting a San Diego school on Oct. 23, 2012, in San Diego. The ballot measure passed with 55% of the vote.

(Lenny Ignelzi / AP )

The resulting Proposition 30, a surcharge on the state’s sales tax and the incomes of wealthy taxpayers, provided revenue for six years — a more robust plan, Brown now says, than what he asked Republicans to support. “We’d have been right back in the soup” with the original plan, he said. “This way, we got a couple of more years.”

Brown campaigned hard for the ballot measure, shrewdly making it about the budget’s biggest beneficiary — schools — and about his own commitment to balancing the books. On election day, it passed with 55% of the vote.

“There’s no way in hell the voters would have approved those taxes if not for their faith in his fiscal stewardship,” Pérez said.

The taxes and California’s recovering economy have since produced historic tax windfalls. The state Department of Finance estimates the 2012 tax initiative and an extension approved by voters (but not explicitly endorsed by the governor) in 2016 has, to date, generated $50 billion in additional revenue.

Brown’s budget dominance begins with a firm grip on tax revenue forecasts »

Not that all of the modern Brown era has been all about less spending. State government spending has risen by 59% since 2011. Much of that has gone to K-12 schools, as required by law, and Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. Healthcare spending, in particular, has more than doubled in seven years, to about $23 billion in general fund costs. California has fully embraced Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. Brown has lashed out at efforts by President Trump to rescind the law.

The rush of revenue also has allowed for a substantial savings account. Brown and lawmakers crafted a robust rainy-day reserve fund, ratified by voters in 2014. “That’s the kind of collaboration you don’t often see between legislators and governors,” Pérez said.

Through lean and flush years alike, the governor’s job approval ratings remained strong. Liberal activists routinely criticized him for not doing more to help those in need, suggesting with an increasing frequency through the years that the scion of a prominent political family had never experienced those struggles first-hand.

Health and human services advocates hold a Los Angeles rally to protest Gov. Jerry Brown’s budget in 2014.

(Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times )

“They’re always asking for more,” he said. “There’s no natural limit. There’s no predator for this species of budgetary activity, except the governor.”

Even critics acknowledged that Brown kept listening to advocacy groups. In 2016, he agreed to remove a provision in the state’s welfare assistance program, CalWORKs, that denied coverage to children born while their families were already receiving benefits. The ban had been in place for almost two decades.

“We came a long way,” said state Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), the chair of the Senate’s budget committee and a vocal advocate for changing the welfare rule. From the beginning, she said, Brown’s advisers said it was about the cost, not the policy.

This year, Mitchell convinced him to go even further — a small increase in the size of CalWORKs’ monthly cash grants, subsidies that failed to rise with inflation for more than a decade.

Mitchell recalled a flight from Los Angeles during which Brown, a voracious reader, spoke at length about a book that chronicled poverty around the world. “And I was able to say to him, ‘Yes, that chapter right there, that sounds like Central California,’ ” she said.

Likening income inequality to his celebrated efforts on climate change, Mitchell said she once told Brown, “By you just making it a priority, you’ve had worldwide impact. So have the same attitude about poverty.”

In recent years, Brown has agreed to expand childcare programs, Medi-Cal coverage for children regardless of immigration status and a state earned income tax credit for the working poor.

“His track record on issues of poverty, inequality and economic security adds up far better [over two terms] than it often looked in individual budget years,” said Chris Hoene, executive director of the nonprofit California Budget and Policy Center, which advocates for the working poor.

Looking beyond the one-year-at-a-time approach to state budgets may be an important legacy of the Brown administration. The governor pointed to recently adopted five-year plans as a way to get a better look at what’s over the horizon. “It gets people thinking about the inevitable consequences of the decisions in this budget,” he said.

It also may help break one of the more ignominious traditions of California governors: leaving a fiscal mess for the next person to clean up. It’s the kind of dilemma his father, the late Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, left Ronald Reagan in 1967 and he left the late George Deukmejian in 1983.

“The story is one of governors always hitting a wall and leaving a big, fat deficit,” he said. “I wanted to avoid that if I could.”

[email protected]

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Last month, in a special election, voters in southern Arizona chose Adelita Grijalva to succeed her late father in Congress.

The outcome in the solidly Democratic district was never in doubt. The final tally wasn’t remotely close.

Grijalva, a Tucson native and former Pima County supervisor, crushed her Republican opponent, 69% to 29%.

The people spoke, loudly and emphatically, and normally that would have been that. Grijalva would have assumed office by now, allowing her to serve her orphaned constituents by filling a House seat that’s been vacant since her father died in March, after representing portions of Arizona for more than 20 years.

But these are not normal times. These are times when everything, including the time of day and state of the weather, has become politically charged.

And so Grijalva is residing in limbo. Or, rather, at her campaign headquarters in Tucson, since she’s been locked out of her congressional office on Capitol Hill — the one her father used, which now has her name on a plaque outside. She’s been denied entry by Speaker Mike Johnson.

“It’s pretty horrible,” Grijalva said in an interview, “because regardless of whether I have an official office or not, constituents elected me and people are reaching out to me through every social media outlet.

“‘I have a question,’” they tell Grijalva, or “‘I’m afraid I’m going to get fired’ or ‘We need some sort of assistance.’”

All she can do is refer them to Arizona’s two U.S. senators.

House members are scattered across the country during the partial government shutdown and Johnson said he can’t possibly administer the oath of office to Grijalva during a pro forma session, a time when normal business — legislative debate, roll call votes — is not being conducted. “We have to have everybody here,” Johnson said, “and we’ll swear her in.”

But, lo, dear reader, are you sitting down?

It turns out there were two Republican lawmakers elected this year in special elections, each, as it happens from Florida. Both were sworn in the very next day … during pro forma sessions!

Shocked? Don’t be. In the Trump era, rules and standards are applied in flagrantly different ways, depending on which political party is involved.

But partisanship aside, what possible reason would Johnson have to stall Grijalva’s swearing-in? Here’s a clue: It involves a convicted sex trafficker and former buddy of President Trump, whose foul odor trails him like the reeking carcass of a beached whale.

Yes, it’s the late Jeffrey Epstein!

“On my very first day in Congress, I’ll sign the bipartisan discharge petition to force a vote on releasing the Epstein files,” Grijalva said on the eve of her landslide election. “This is as much about fulfilling Congress’ duty as a constitutional check on this administration as it is about demanding justice for survivors.”

Jeffrey Epstein. Gone but very much unforgotten.

For years, his perversions have been an obsession among those, mainly on the right, who believe a “deep state” cover-up has protected the rich and powerful who partnered with women procured by Epstein. After Trump’s marionette attorney general, Pam Bondi, suggested a client list was sitting on her desk, awaiting release, the Justice Department abruptly reversed course.

There was no such list, it announced, and Epstein definitely committed suicide and wasn’t, as the conspiracy-minded suggest, murdered by those wishing to silence him.

Trump, who palled around with Epstein, urged everyone to move along. Naturally, Johnson fell into immediate lockstep. (Bondi, for her part, tap-danced through a contentious Senate hearing last week, repeatedly sidestepping questions about the Epstein-Trump relationship, including whether photos exist of the president alongside “half-naked young women.”)

Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, a GOP lawmaker and persistent Trump irritant, and Democratic California Rep. Ro Khanna have led the bipartisan effort to force the Justice Department to cough up the government’s unclassified records related to Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, his former girlfriend and fellow sex trafficker.

The discharge petition, overriding the objections of Trump and Johnson and forcing the House to vote on release of the files, needs at least 218 signatures, which constitutes a majority of the 435 members. The petition has been stalled for weeks, just one signature shy of ratification.

Enter Grijalva.

Or not.

Johnson, who may be simply delaying an inevitable House vote to curry Trump’s favor, insists the Epstein matter has “nothing to do with” his refusal to seat Grivalja.

Righto.

And planets don’t revolve around the sun, hot air doesn’t rise and gravity doesn’t bring falling leaves to Earth.

More than 200 Democratic House members have affixed their signatures to the petition, along with four Republicans — Massie and Reps. Lauren Boebert, Nancy Mace and Marjorie Taylor Greene. The latter three are all MAGA stalwarts who have bravely broken ranks with Trump to stand up for truth and the victims of Epstein’s ravages.

“Aren’t we all against convicted pedophiles and anyone who enables them?” Greene asked in an interview with Axios.

Most are, one would assume. But apparently not everybody.

Fox News doesn’t want to talk about the crude doodle of a naked woman, with its creepy message printed across her breasts and torso, and a signature — “Donald” — in her pubic area.

And it certainly doesn’t want to draw attention to a newly released photo of the convicted child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein holding an oversized check signed “DJTRUMP,” with a caption that reads, “Jeffrey showing early talents with money + women! Sells ‘fully depreciated’ [female’s name redacted] to Donald Trump for $22,500.”

While just about everyone has had something to say about the most damning documents yet to come out of the so-called Epstein files, America’s No. 1 cable news network has opted to sit this one out.

Questions about President Trump’s shared history with the nation’s most notorious sex offender shot to the top of news feeds Tuesday after the Republican-led House Oversight Committee released documents to the public that it had subpoenaed from the Epstein estate. The material included notes, drawings and photos from friends and associates to Epstein on his 50th birthday in 2003.

Donald Trump, his future wife Melania, Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell at Mar-a-Lago in 2000.

(Davidoff Studios Photography / Getty Images)

The “body art” letter that appears to be written by Trump features this bizarre, imaginary conversation:

Voice Over: There must be more to life than having everything.
Donald: Yes, there is, but I won’t tell you what it is.
Jeffrey: Nor will I, since I already know what it is.
Donald: We have certain things in common, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: Yes, we do come to think of it.
Donald: Enigmas never age, have you noticed that?
Jeffrey: As a matter of fact, it was clear to me the last time I saw you.
Donald: A pal is a wonderful thing. Happy birthday — and may every day be another wonderful secret.

Fox News on Tuesday suppressed the skeezy birthday note like a dark family secret and instead focused on safer, more comfortable subject matter, like Bill Clinton. But there wasn’t much to say since the birthday greeting that appeared to have been signed by the former president lacked drawings of naked females or implications about buying girls and/or women for sex. The short passage praised Epstein’s “childlike curiosity.” Thankfully, Fox had other breaking stories to chase.

Host Sean Hannity focused on a deadly North Carolina train stabbing and how it implicated Democrats’ “woke” criminal policies. Earlier in the day, Fox News was busy plumbing the depths of the Biden “autopen” scandal after a “bombshell report.”

Fox News’ website was equally as busy avoiding the nation’s top story. It led with “Charlotte mayor scores primary reelection victory amid national backlash over gruesome train murder” and another breaking story: “Hellfire missile bounces off mysterious orb in stunning UAP footage shown to Congress.”

Its story on the scandalous documents? “Inside Epstein’s infamous ‘birthday book’: Clinton’s note, poolside candids and bizarre animal pics.” The piece was toward the bottom of the page, tucked away like dirty laundry. It never once mentioned Trump.

Ghislaine Maxwell compiled the birthday book, collecting sentiments from Epstein’s friends and then gifting the album to her high-rolling financier bestie. Less than two decades later, she would be convicted of sex trafficking, among other charges. Epstein died in jail of a reported suicide in 2019 while awaiting trial on similar charges. Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison term.

Trump said Tuesday when asked to respond to the birthday letter, “I don’t comment on something that’s a dead issue. I gave all comments to the staff. It’s a dead issue.” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Tuesday during a briefing that “the president did not write this letter. He didn’t sign this letter.” She said the administration would be open to a handwriting expert reviewing the signature on the letter.

But several news organizations have beaten them to it and compared the signature on the Epstein letter against Trump’s signature on other documents, and found them to be similar.

The alleged Trump letter was first reported by the Wall Street Journal in July, when the president denied writing it and said it was “a fake thing.” He filed a lawsuit against the paper’s publisher, reporters and executives, including News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch.

The album also contains messages that appear to be from other notable personalities, including the current U.K. ambassador to the U.S., Peter Mandelson; Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who was part of a legal team representing Trump during his first impeachment trial; and billionaire retail magnate Les Wexner.

The caption under the novelty-check photo appears to be written by Joel Pashcow, a Mar-a-Lago club member and former chairman of a New York real estate company. The woman’s name and photo are redacted in the caption and the image. Lawyers for Epstein’s estate removed the names and photos of women and minors who appeared in the book so possible victims of Epstein could not be identified.

Other drawings in the book make Trump’s alleged contribution look docile. They include a queasy illustration of Epstein handing out balloons to young girls. Fox did mention the drawings of Epstein being massaged by several topless women around a pool, and the one of a zebra having sex with a lion. How much time until it’s suggested that it could be the work of Biden’s autopen? 5,4,3…

A Hollywood producer bilked film and business partners out of $12 million, claiming he was using their money to work on movies or other legitimate enterprises, but instead using it to buy expensive cars, houses and even a surrogate, prosecutors alleged Wednesday.

David Brown worked for years as a producer of indie Hollywood productions, burnishing his credentials as a producer of the film festival darling “The Fallout,” starring Jenna Ortega, which won the narrative feature competition at South by Southwest, as well as of “The Apprentice,” the movie about the rise of Donald Trump.

But even as Brown seemed to be putting together a successful producing career, federal prosecutors said, he was also defrauding numerous victims by siphoning funds that belonged to production companies and transferring the money to himself or businesses he controlled.

In an email to The Times for a 2023 article that documented the trail of fraud allegations that dogged him, Brown said he had made mistakes in the past, but denied defrauding anyone.

“I had to work really hard to get where I am today,” he said. “I had to overcome a lot. I had to fight for my place. … I’m not some bad guy.”

Brown was indicted Wednesday on 21 counts of wire fraud, transactional money laundering and aggravated identity theft. He had his first court appearance in South Carolina.

Prosecutors alleged that Brown, who lived in Sherman Oaks, used a series of tactics to defraud his business partners out of their money.

He convinced one victim to put money into a company called Film Holdings Capital, which was supposed to finance film projects. But Brown instead took the person’s money and used it for “maintaining his lifestyle and repaying prior victims … in a Ponzi-like scheme,” prosecutors said.

In other instances, Brown used production company funds to pay Hollywood Covid Testing, a company he controlled, “for services never rendered or already paid for,” prosecutors said.

He also told one victim that they could pool money and make a business flipping houses. He contributed little to the business and used some of the victim’s money for other purposes, prosecutors said.

Brown made sure to conceal his checkered past from potential business partners. He tried not to let them know about the 2023 article in The Times, or about the extensive litigation filed against him, according to federal prosecutors.

The 2023 article — for which The Times interviewed more than 30 people — detailed a series of allegations against Brown from his film partners, including that he forged Kevin Spacey’s signature and told film investors that Spacey had agreed to act as a main character in a film for just $100,000. But Spacey had not signed on to the film and did not even know what it was, his former manager told The Times. Brown denied forging Spacey’s signature.

Brown used the money he stole from his victims to make extravagant purchases, prosecutors said.

He bought a 2025 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon and three Teslas, including a 2024 Cybertruck, prosecutors alleged. He used the funds to make mortgage payments on his home and to remodel the home and used about $100,000 to install a pool, prosecutors said.

He even bought a house for his mother using the ill-gotten cash, prosecutors alleged.

On top of that, Brown also allegedly used stolen money to pay $70,000 for surrogacy, private school tuition for his child and other services.

In all, he stole more than $12 million from his victims, prosecutors alleged.

Brown is in federal custody in South Carolina and will enter a plea to the charges at his arraignment in the coming weeks, according to the U.S. attorney’s office for the Central District of California.

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. — Elon Musk said he’s carrying out his threat to form a new political party after his fissure with President Trump, announcing the America Party in response to the president’s sweeping tax cuts law.

Musk, once an ever-present ally to Trump as he headed up the White House advisory team, which he calls the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, broke with the Republican president over his signature legislation, which was signed into law Friday.

As the bill made its way through Congress, Musk threatened to form the “America Party” if “this insane spending bill passes.”

“When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste & graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy,” Musk said Saturday on X, the social media company he owns. “Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom.”

The formation of new political parties is not uncommon, but they typically struggle to pull any significant support away from the Republican and Democratic parties. But Musk, the world’s richest man who spent at least $250 million supporting Trump in the 2024 election, could affect the 2026 elections determining control of Congress if he is willing to spend significant amounts of money.

His reignited feud with the president could also be costly for Musk, whose businesses rely on billions of dollars in government contracts and publicly traded company Tesla has taken a hit in the market.

It wasn’t clear whether Musk had taken steps to formally create the new political party. Spokespeople for Musk and his political action committee, America PAC, didn’t immediately comment Sunday.

As of Sunday morning, there were multiple political parties listed in the Federal Election Commission database that had been formed in the the hours since Musk’s Saturday X post with versions of “America Party” of “DOGE” or “X” in the name, or Musk listed among people affiliated with the entity.

But none appeared to be authentic, listing contacts for the organization as email addresses such as ” [email protected]″ or untraceable Protonmail addresses.

Musk on Sunday spent the morning on X taking feedback from users about the party and indicated he’d use the party to get involved in the 2026 midterm elections.

Last month, he threatened to try to oust every member of Congress who voted for Trump’s bill. Musk had called the tax breaks and spending cuts package a “disgusting abomination,” warning it would increase the federal deficit, among other critiques.

“The Republican Party has a clean sweep of the executive, legislative and judicial branches and STILL had the nerve to massively increase the size of government, expanding the national debt by a record FIVE TRILLION DOLLARS,” Musk said Sunday on X.

His critiques of the bill and move to form a political party mark a reversal from May, when his time in the White House was winding down and the head of rocket company SpaceX and electric vehicle maker Tesla said he would spend “a lot less” on politics in the future.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, who clashed with Musk while he ran DOGE, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that DOGE’s “principles” were popular but “if you look at the polling, Elon was not.”

“I imagine that those board of directors did not like this announcement yesterday and will be encouraging him to focus on his business activities, not his political activities,” he said.

Price writes for the Associated Press.

Billionaire Elon Musk has renewed his criticisms of United States President Donald Trump’s signature budget bill, calling it a “disgusting abomination” in a series of social media posts.

On Tuesday, just days after leaving his post in the Trump administration, Musk offered yet another broadside against the legislation, known as the One Big Beautiful Bill.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” Musk wrote. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.”

His subsequent posts laid out the reasoning for his opposition, suggesting that the spending and tax cuts proposed in the bill would balloon the US national debt.

“It will massively increase the already gigantic budget deficit to $2.5 trillion (!!!) and burden America citizens with crushingly unsustainable debt,” Musk said in one post. In another, he wrote, “Congress is making America bankrupt.”

The bill would extend tax cuts established in 2017, during Trump’s first term, and funnel more funds to his administration’s priorities, including $46.5bn for the construction of barriers at the US border with Mexico.

But to accomplish those goals, critics have pointed out that the legislation would lift the cap on the national debt by $4 trillion. It would also limit access to social safety-net programmes like Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), known colloquially as food stamps.

The Congressional Budget Office, a nonpartisan bureau that provides research to Congress, estimates that the bill will result in a $698bn reduction in Medicaid subsidies and $267bn less in funding for SNAP.

Those trade-offs have spurred concern on both sides of the aisle, with Democrats and some Republicans expressing fears that their constituents may lose their access to vital government services.

Fiscal conservatives, meanwhile, have baulked at the increase to the national debt.

In an early-morning vote on May 22, the House of Representatives narrowly passed the One Big Beautiful Bill by a tight vote of 215 to 214. Republicans hold a 220-seat majority in the 435-member chamber, but several members were either absent or voted “present”.

Only two Republicans — Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Warren Davidson of Ohio — broke with party ranks to vote against the bill. The House’s 212 Democrats all voted against it as well, in a unified show of opposition.

That sent the bill to the Senate, where Republicans likewise hold a razor-thin majority. Senators are expected to weigh the bill in the coming days.

But following Musk’s criticisms of the One Big Beautiful Bill, Massie chimed in to applaud the billionaire for his frank criticism.

“He’s right,” Massie wrote in a brief post, to which Musk responded that his opposition was rooted in “simple math”.

Musk also called on voters to “fire all politicians who betrayed the American people” during the 2026 midterm elections — referencing what he considered wasteful spending.

Until last week, Musk had served as a special government employee in the second Trump administration, helping to lead the newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) since the president’s inauguration in January. In that advisory role, Musk was tasked with identifying and eliminating “waste” in the federal bureaucracy.

His and DOGE’s efforts to slash the federal workforce, yank contracts and shutter government agencies, however, made them both a target for widespread criticism and lawsuits. Opponents accused Musk of engaging in conflicts of interest, including by attacking watchdog groups like the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Federal law generally prohibits special government employees from serving for more than 130 days in a year, and Musk ended his tumultuous tenure in the Trump administration with an Oval Office sendoff last week.

Trump presented the billionaire with a decorative key to the White House and called his work transformational, crediting Musk with ushering in “a colossal change in the old ways of doing business in Washington”.

But in the lead-up to that goodbye, Musk appeared in previews for the TV show CBS Sunday Morning denouncing the One Big Beautiful Bill. He described its provisions as contrary to the spirit of DOGE’s spending cuts.

“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS.

“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” he added. “I don’t know if it could be both. My personal opinion.”

Those comments fuelled rumours of a widening rift between Trump and Musk, who had been one of the president’s most prominent donors and proxies during his 2024 re-election campaign.

Still, the Trump administration has brushed aside reports of tensions between the two men. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, for instance, shrugged off a question about Musk’s latest fusillade from her podium at the White House briefing room.

“ Look, the president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill. It doesn’t change the president’s opinion,” she said. “This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it.”

Leavitt did, however, blast Republican senators who opposed the legislation for “not having their facts together”.

One of those senators is Rand Paul of Kentucky, who voiced his support for Musk’s dissent against the bill on Tuesday.

“I agree with Elon. We have both seen the massive waste in government spending and we know another $5 trillion in debt is a huge mistake,” Paul wrote. “We can and must do better.”

Trump, however, lashed out against Paul on social media and defended his budget bill, calling it a “WINNER”.

“Rand votes NO on everything, but never has any practical or constructive ideas. His ideas are actually crazy (losers!). The people of Kentucky can’t stand him,” Trump said. “This is a BIG GROWTH BILL!”

United States President Donald Trump has brushed aside criticism of his wide-ranging budget bill — known as the One Big Beautiful Bill — from a high-profile source, government adviser Elon Musk.

On Wednesday, at a swearing-in ceremony in the Oval Office, Trump faced questions about Musk’s comments, which suggested the bill would balloon the national debt.

The Republican leader responded with a degree of ambivalence, though he staunchly defended the bill’s tax cuts.

“We will be negotiating that bill, and I’m not happy about certain aspects of it, but I’m thrilled by other aspects of it,” Trump said. “That’s the way they go.”

The budget bill clocks in at over a thousand pages, and it contains a range of domestic policy priorities for the Trump administration.

That includes legislation cementing some of the tax cuts Trump championed during his first term as president, in 2017. It would also increase the funds available for Trump’s “mass deportation” effort and heightened security along the US-Mexico border.

Some $46.5bn, for instance, would be earmarked to renew construction of the southern border wall and other barriers, another hallmark of Trump’s first term in office.

But to pay for those tax cuts and policy priorities, the bill proposes measures that remain controversial on both sides of the political spectrum.

One provision, for instance, would increase the federal debt limit by $4 trillion. Others would impose strict work requirements on programmes like Medicaid — a government health insurance for low-income Americans — and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), sometimes known as food stamps.

Those work requirements are expected to bar thousands of people from accessing those safety-net programmes, allowing for cost savings. But critics fear those barriers will drive some families deeper into poverty.

In a preview of an interview with the TV show CBS Sunday Morning, Musk expressed frustration with the sheer cost of the bill, echoing criticism from fiscal conservatives.

He also accused the “Big Beautiful Bill” of setting back the progress he made as leader of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a task force Trump established to pare back “wasteful” spending.

“I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing,” Musk told CBS, dressed in an “Occupy Mars” T-shirt.

“I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” he added. “I don’t know if it could be both. My personal opinion.”

This is not the first time that Musk has spoken out against a US budget bill. In December, under former President Joe Biden, Musk rallied public outrage against another piece of budget legislation that weighed in at over a thousand pages, calling on Congress to “kill the bill“.

Musk’s latest comments, however, signal a potentially widening fracture between himself and the Trump White House.

Up until recently, Musk, a billionaire thought to be the world’s richest man, has played a prominent role in Trump’s government. He even helped him secure a second term as president.

In 2024, Musk endorsed Trump’s re-election effort, joined him on the campaign trail and donated hundreds of millions of dollars to the Republican leader and his political allies.

For his part, Trump returned Musk’s warm embrace. Days after he won a second term as president, Trump announced that Musk would join his incoming administration as head of DOGE.

But Musk’s role in the White House has remained ambiguous, and highly controversial. Though Musk is a regular presence at presidential cabinet meetings, he has not had to undergo a Senate confirmation hearing.

The White House has described him as a “special government employee”, a temporary role given to consultants from business fields. Normally, those employees can only work with the government for 130 days per year, and they are barred from using their government roles for financial gain.

But critics have argued that the length of Musk’s tenure at the White House has not been clearly established and that he has indeed leveraged his position for personal profit. In March, for instance, Trump held a news conference to show off models from Musk’s car company Tesla.

Musk’s other business ventures, including the rocket company SpaceX and the satellite communications firm Starlink, have also raised conflict-of-interest questions, given that they are competitors for government contracts.

Media reports have indicated that there have been behind-the-scenes clashes between Musk and other members of the Trump White House that may have cooled relations between the president and his billionaire backer. But Trump has so far avoided criticising Musk publicly.

On Wednesday, for instance, Trump pivoted from the question about Musk’s comments to attacking Democratic members of Congress, who refuse to back his signature budget bill.

“ Remember, we have zero Democrat votes because they’re bad people,” Trump said. “There’s something wrong with them.”

A version of the budget bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives last week. Currently, it is being considered by the Senate. But with a 53-seat majority in the 100-person chamber, Senate Republicans can only afford to lose three votes if they hope to pass the bill.

Trump renewed his call for party unity on Wednesday, despite concerns from his fellow Republicans.

“We have to get a lot of votes,” Trump said. “We need to get a lot of support, and we have a lot of support.”

Some Republicans have voiced opposition to the increase in the national debt. Others fear the effects that Medicaid restrictions might have on their constituents.

Trump himself has said he opposes any cuts to Medicaid. But he has tried to frame the bill’s tax cuts as a boon to lower-income people, though critics point out those cuts are poised to deliver the biggest savings to the wealthy.

“We’ll have the lowest tax rate we’ve ever had in the history of our country,” Trump said. “Tremendous amounts of benefits are going to the middle-income people of our country, low- and middle-income people of our country.”

NFL owners have decided to keep the “Tush Push,” the signature short-yardage play of the defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles, after a vote Wednesday at their spring meeting in Minneapolis.

Multiple media outlets are reporting that the vote was 22-10 in favor of the ban, falling short of the 24 votes it needed to go into effect.

The “Tush Push” is a version of a quarterback sneak in which two or three players line up behind the signal caller and help drive him forward in short-yardage situations.

The Eagles — who also call the play the “Brotherly Shove” — have been nearly flawless in executing the push since 2022, with two-time Pro Bowl quarterback Jalen Hurts carrying the ball. During that span, ESPN reports, the Eagles and Buffalo Bills have run the play more than the rest of the NFL combined, with a far greater success rate (87% for Philadelphia and Buffalo compared to 71% for the rest of the league).

Also during the past three seasons, the Eagles have scored 27 touchdowns and recorded 92 first downs using the play, according to ESPN.

“Push on,” the Eagles said in a graphic posted on X after the vote results came out. The team also posted a 26-minute video of “Tush Push” highlights on YouTube.

A proposal by the Green Bay Packers to ban the play was tabled at the NFL’s annual league meeting in April. The Packers submitted a revision this week to prohibit “an offensive player from pushing, pulling, lifting or assisting the runner except by individually blocking opponents for him.”

The initial proposal had called for those restrictions only to be in effect “immediately at the snap.”

The proposal cited “player safety” and “pace of play” as reasons for the ban, although many opponents of the play seem to focus on the former argument. Others have questioned the play’s place in football, suggesting it is more of a rugby move, and that its perceived automatic nature, at least when the Eagles run it, is bad for the game.

Eagles coach Nick Sirianni defended his team’s use of the play while speaking with reporters in February.

“We work really, really hard, and our guys are talented at this play. And so it’s a little insulting to say just because we’re good at it, it’s automatic,” he said.

“The fact that it’s a successful play for the Eagles and people want to take that away, I think it’s a little unfair.”

Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie and retired Philadelphia center Jason Kelce addressed the team owners Wednesday before the vote. Kelce had explained on the most recent episode on his and brother Travis Kelce‘s “New Heights” podcast that he was going to Minneapolis “to answer any questions people have” about the safety of the play.

“I’m just going to offer, if anybody has any questions about the tush push, or whether I retired because of the tush push, I’ll tell you, I’ll come out of retirement today if you tell me, ‘All you gotta do is run 80 tush pushes to play in the NFL,’” Kelce said. “I’ll do that gladly. It’ll be the easiest job in the world.”