Elon Musk Squirms When Asked Tough Questions

Elon Musk's stint as "First Buddy" has drawn to a close. But the subject of his boss and ally, president Donald Trump, appears to still be an open wound.

In an interview with CBS Sunday Morning, Musk visibly squirmed when asked a question about the Trump administration attempting to ban international students from entering Harvard University — and remained touchy about anything Trump-related throughout the conversation.

"I'm wondering what your thought is on the ban on foreign students, the proposal," asked CBS's David Pogue. "I mean, you were one of those kids, right?"

It was a pertinent question; Musk indeed attended university in America as an international student, jumpstarting his career. But the billionaire had no interest in discussing that tension.

"Yeah. I mean, I think we wanna stick to, you know, the subject of the day, which is, like, spaceships, as opposed to, you know, presidential policy," Musk said. (The interview was conducted right before the most recent test flight of Musk's Starship last Tuesday. After a successful lift-off, both stages of the SpaceX megarocket exploded.)

"Oh, okay," Pogue said. "I was told anything is good, but..."

"No, well — no," Musk responded, less than artfully dodging the question.

But when given the chance, Musk aired out some of his grievances about his so-called Department of Government Efficiency, and how his time there tanked his personal reputation and that of his businesses, especially his EV automaker Tesla.

"It's a bit unfair because, like, DOGE became the whipping boy for everything," Musk complained. "So, if there was some cut, real or imagined, everyone would blame DOGE." 

Perhaps Musk's resentment for being a convenient lightning rod for the Trump administration goes both ways — at the public who despised him, and his political allies for throwing him to the wolves.

We're reading between the lines, of course. But, without even being asked, Musk later launched into a rant about the administration, and didn't have only nice things to say.

"It's not like I agree with everything the administration does," Musk said. "I agree with much of what the administration does. But we have differences of opinion."

"There are things that I don't entirely agree with. But it's difficult for me to bring that up in an interview because then it creates a bone of contention," Musk continued. "I'm a little stuck in a bind, where I'm like, well, I don't wanna, you know, speak up against the administration, but I also don't wanna take responsibility for everything this administration's doing."

Ding ding ding. There's that hint of "whipping boy" bitterness again.

Musk also singled out Trump's new proposed spending bill, which would heap another $3.8 trillion onto the national debt over the next decade; the whole point of DOGE was to slash $1 trillion in federal spending, and under Musk's leadership it didn't even come close to that figure.

"I was, like, disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, doesn't decrease it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing," Musk said.

It was a fatal error. Within 24 hours of CBS sharing a clip of the interview segment where Musk criticized the bill, the world's richest man announced on his website X that his time as a "special government employee" was over.

More on Elon Musk: Trump Just Kicked Elon Musk's Hand-Picked NASA Head to the Curb

The post Elon Musk Squirms When Asked Tough Questions appeared first on Futurism.