The Republican bill passed the Senate in a 51-50 vote on Tuesday after a series of last-minute changes to sway holdouts. Vice President J.D. Vance broke the tie
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The GOP's sweeping domestic policy bill passed the Senate on Tuesday, bringing the legislation carrying the bulk of the party's domestic agenda closer to President Donald Trump's desk. Trump, though, also spent part of the day reigniting his feud with Tesla $TSLA CEO Elon Musk.
The Republican bill passed the Senate in a 51-50 vote on Tuesday after a series of last-minute changes to sway holdouts. Vice President J.D. Vance broke the tie as GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Alaska, Rand Paul of Kentucky, and Thom Tillis of North Carolina sided with every Democratic senator to oppose the bill. Now House GOP leaders say they will attempt to pass the bill by July 4 to meet Trump's self-imposed deadline.
But Musk has been taking repeated swings at the GOP megabill in the days leading up to its Senate passage. And in response, the president didn't close the door to deporting Musk and yanking his companies' government contracts.
"We'll have to take a look. We might have to put DOGE on Elon," Trump said Tuesday during an exchange with reporters. "The monster that might have to go back and eat Elon. Wouldn’t that be terrible? He gets a lot of subsidies."
Later in the day, Trump projected confidence that the House would quickly take up the mammoth legislation and pass it. "I think it will be easier in the House than it was in the Senate," he said.
Musk's ire has been triggered by provisions in the Republican legislation that would slash federal incentives for clean energy production. The multi-trillion dollar package is focused on extending tax cuts, and more spending for border and defense. An excise tax on wind and solar farms relying on foreign materials was stripped from the legislation during the final negotiating blitz to get it over the finish line.
At one point on Monday, the Tesla chief threatened to start a third party. He has swerved between bankrolling challengers against the two political parties and yanking further political spending to focus on Tesla instead.
“If this insane spending bill passes, the America Party will be formed the next day,” he wrote in one post on X. “Our country needs an alternative to the Democrat-Republican uniparty so that the people actually have a VOICE.”
In a separate post, Musk kept up the bombastic rhetoric. He threatened to support challengers to Republicans who give a thumbs up to the GOP megabill. Musk said those voting for it “will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth."
The blast radius for Musk's unceasing attacks on the legislation is threatening Tesla's bottom line. Tesla stock sank about 6% in Tuesday trading.
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