Trump Aide Navarro Brushes Off Musk Insults: ‘Not an Issue’

“I’ve been called worse,” said the White House adviser.

Senior White House economic advisor Peter Navarro dispels the insults that were published by his high-tech entrepreneur and fellow Trump advisor Elon Musk as the administration continues to announce tariffs.

When asked about Musk’s comments on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Navarro said, “That’s not the problem.”

“Even though he called you ‘stupid’ and ‘more stupid than a brick bag’,” the NBC anchor asked him. “I’ve been called worse,” Navarro replied.

“Elon is all fine. His appearance is doing a very good job with his team in waste, fraud and abuse,” Navarro said, noting the efforts of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

The job has been “a huge contribution to America, and anyone doing that should not be exposed to burning his car insanity.”

Earlier this year, President Donald Trump tapped his mask to help Doge reduce the federal workforce and cut government spending. Musk is currently working as a special civil servant. This means that you must leave your position in 130 days.

On April 2nd, Trump announced a wide range of tariffs last week before retracting many tariffs, keeping his 10% baseline mandate in place in almost every country except China. Navarro is a major advocate for tariffs and has defended the policy in several recent media interviews.

But earlier this month, Tesla’s CEO was uneasy about the tariffs announced by the Trump administration that criticized Navarro and his Harvard education.

At one point, Navarro said that his company is an assembler, not a manufacturer, and that Tesla’s vehicles use a number of components made in other countries such as China and Japan.

“We all understand at the White House… Elon is an automaker. But he’s not an automaker. He’s often a car assembler,” Navarro told CNBC last week. “When I go to his Texas factory, the majority of the engines he gets, in the case of EVs, the batteries come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan.”

That point seemed to not sit well with a mask that responded to Navarro on social media platform X, writing, “What he’s saying here is clearly wrong.”

The White House has also downplayed their public spats, with spokesman Caroline Leavbitt saying at the briefing that “they are two individuals who have very different views on trade and tariffs.”

“The boys will become boys and we will continue their public sparring,” she said in early April. “I think we are talking to the president’s willingness to hear from all sides that this White House has a very diverse view on such a diverse issue that this White House has the highest level of people in this government.”

Also, in an interview on Sunday, Navarro once again defended the imposition of tariffs. It aims to revive US manufacturing and strengthen national security, but has caused wild fluctuations in the stock market.

“Zero tariffs sell $15 for every dollar we sell, especially in countries like Vietnam. “The big issues we have are non-tariff barriers, currency manipulation, dumping, back taxes and everything about it.

Reuters contributed to this report.