Peter Navarro repeatedly insisted on Thursday that all is well between him and Elon Musk—no, really.
“Elon and I are fine. We’re great,” President Donald Trump’s tariff mastermind told CNN’s The Arena with Kasie Hunt. “It’s no problem. I said that earlier—it’s like, it’s no problem.”
“It’s like, it’s no problem,” he said one more time for good measure.
A feud between the two Trump advisers went nuclear earlier this week as they stood at odds over the president’s market-crashing “Liberation Day” tariffs.
Navarro, 75, widely credited with cooking up Trump’s sky-high tariffs, staunchly defended the levies as the Tesla CEO called for a “zero-tariff situation.” In a series of X posts, Musk called Navarro “dumber than a sack of bricks” and “Peter Retarrdo” in an apparent reference to the slur “retard.”
Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 8, 2025
“My job is trade. Elon does DOGE, and the twain doesn’t meet,” Navarro told CNN. “That’s a tempest in a teapot and it’s in my rearview mirror and it’s in here. We’re fine.”
The tariff guru appears to have bigger things to worry about, anyway.
Sources told Politico that Navarro has been relegated to the sidelines of Trump’s trade team, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent was placed at the helm and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick got the role of “bad cop.”
National Economic Council chief Kevin Hassett earlier revealed that only Bessent and Lutnick were in the room when Trump made the final call to pause his tariffs.
Pressed by CNN’s Hunt about where he was when the president made the big decision, Navarro said “you don’t have to be in the room.”
Navarro claimed that multiple officials—including him, Bessent, Lutnick, Trade Representative Jamieson Greer, and Vice President JD Vance—advised Trump during his decision-making process.
“It doesn’t matter who’s in the room,” he said. “The boss calls it. Whatever. That’s not the point. The point is that this team is the best team in history. We provide them the appropriate set of advice.”
Asked about the reported shifts in the trade team, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt told Politico that “Bessent, Lutnick, Greer, Navarro, and Hassett have all been part of the team and continue to be.”
A White House official also told the outlet that Navarro remains “very much involved on trade and manufacturing.”
A former administration official told Politico that Navarro didn’t lose clout since he never had any formal authority in the first place.
“Navarro can’t be sidelined from negotiations because Navarro was never leading negotiations,” the official reportedly said. “He’s not a Cabinet member, so he doesn’t have legal authority over trade measures. His role is simply to advise the president.”
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