Nathan Howard/REUTERS
Elon Musk said that brandishing a chainsaw onstage in February probably wasn’t such a good idea.
Musk — who’s been on a tear criticizing President Donald Trump’s spending bill — was posting on X about the debt ceiling on Tuesday. That got a response from an X user who criticized Musk for his actions in February.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have taken the chainsaw on stage and acted a fool. Maybe you could have gotten more done if you weren’t so worried about looking cool,” the X user, Jim Spradlin, wrote, responding to one of Musk’s Tuesday tweets on government spending.
“Valid point. Milei gave me the chainsaw backstage and I ran with it, but, in retrospect, it lacked empathy,” Musk replied, referring to Javier Milei, Argentina’s president.
That moment at the Conservative Political Action Conference in February has become an iconic image of Musk’s time helming the Department of Government Efficiency.
“President Milei has a gift for me,” Musk said onstage at CPAC.
Milei then walked out from backstage and handed the chainsaw to Musk, who lifted it over his head and brandished it briefly while growling.
“This is the chainsaw for bureaucracy,” Musk said, chainsaw aloft.
Now, things are different with Trump and Musk. Musk has become one of the most vocal opponents of Trump’s “big, beautiful bill.”
Musk started criticizing the bill in June, leading to an ugly, public fallout with Trump that seemed to clear up. But he reignited his criticism on Saturday, posting on X that the president’s signature tax bill — which would cut an electric vehicle tax credit that has helped Musk’s Tesla — “will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country.”
“Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future,” he wrote.
He also threatened to form a new political party and fund primary opponents to any lawmakers who help pass the spending bill.
In response, Trump has suggested at press events and in a post on Truth Social that DOGE could look into slashing Musk’s government contracts.
“I don’t know. We’ll have to take a look. We might have to put DOGE on Elon. You know what DOGE is? The monster that might have to go back and eat Elon,” Trump said at the White House on Tuesday. “Wouldn’t that be terrible? He gets a lot of subsidies.”
Musk then wrote on X: “So tempting to escalate this. So, so tempting. But I will refrain for now.”
Musk and representatives for Milei did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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