Elon Musk calls Peter Navarro 'dumber than a sack of bricks' as Trump trade feud gets bitter (2025)

President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies aren’t just sending the markets crashing and people panicking; they’re creating infighting within his administration.

After top Trump adviser and Tesla (TSLA+1.13%) CEO Elon Musk spent the weekend criticizing the administration’s top trade adviser, Peter Navarro, Musk amped up his criticism Tuesday, calling Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks” on his social media site, X.

Navarro had gone on TV on Monday to suggest that Musk’s issues with Trump’s tariffs were because Musk’s Tesla automobiles were made with parts primarily from outside the U.S. Navarro noted that many of Tesla’s car parts come from Japan, China, Mexico, and Taiwan, all of which will be hit hard by Trump’s tariffs.

“He’s a car person,” Navarro said. “That’s what he does, and he wants the cheap foreign parts.”

He added, “What we want — the differences in our thinking and Elon’s on this — is that we want the tires made in Akron. We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here.”

Musk said Tuesday on X that “Tesla has the most American-made cars” and that, “By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated automaker in America with the highest percentage of US content.” Musk then called on Navarro to ask the “fake expert he invented, Ron Vara.”

The Tesla CEO had dismissed Navarro over the weekend because “He ain’t built sh–” and suggested Navarro’s PhD in economics from Harvard “is a bad thing, not a good thing.”

Musk, in recent days, has heavily criticized the Trump administration’s universal and reciprocal tariff plan and has appealed to the president to walk back the levied duties. Two sources told the Washington Post that Musk personally made an attempted tariff-related appeal to Trump — but has been unsuccessful in changing the president’s mind thus far.

Tesla’s stock continues to be hit hard by news of Trump’s tariffs. The car manufacturer’s stock closed at $233.29 per share Monday, down more than 2.5%. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk has lost almost $3 billion since Trump’s tariff announcement.

This is the highest-profile disagreement between the president and the Tesla CEO, who poured almost $290 million into electing Trump and other Republicans in the 2024 election cycle and who leads the administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).