Elon Musk says Trump's economic plans mean “temporary distress” and a stock market decline

Elon Musk is currently the richest person in the world. That's probably one reason he agrees that former President Donald Trump's economic plans are creating, in his words, “temporary difficulties” in the search for a healthier economy in the next few years.

Early Tuesday morning, Musk replied with “sounds about right” to a post on his social media page. The post referenced Trump's promise to deport about 11 million undocumented immigrants. Musk's hypothetical task of recommending ways to cut government spendingand mass layoffs in the federal government.

“But when the storm passes and it becomes clear to everyone that we are on firmer footing, there will be a rapid recovery to a healthier, more sustainable economy,” the X user added. “History could be made in the next two years.”

https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1851138625679081732

According to most Analyzes According to economists, the Republican presidential candidate's proposals would be mostly negative for the United States. They would do it accelerate insolvency of social security, increase unemployment, increase inflationlower GDP, massively increase the federal debtAnd Increase tax rates for the vast majority of Americans.

Trump has promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants to extend his 2017 tax cuts and reduce taxes for many specific groups of Americans. from waiters and police officers to expatriate Americans and caregivers.

His proposed compensation for these efforts is Massive tariffs on foreign importsalthough this would likely only result in the money being passed on to lower-income Americans who spend a larger percentage of their income on goods like food and clothing. His tariff ideas range from a 10% to 20% tariff on all imports – with higher tariffs on Chinese imports – up to 2,000% on certain products and a 100% tariff for countries that “exit” the US dollar.

Read more: Donald Trump and the trouble with tariffs

If the economy collapses under the weight of Trump's plans, Musk would not suffer. His net worth could take a bit of a hit considering much of it comes from his ownership of Tesla (TSLA-1.17%) in stock, but overall he would be fine.

His net worth is $269.3 billion, more than $50 billion more than that of the world's second richest person, Oracle (ORCL+0.57%) According to Larry Ellison Forbes. In 2022, the average net worth in the US was $1.063 million, while the median was $192,000, according to the data Investopedia.

During a town hall meeting last week, Musk said cutting government spending would be relatively easy because the federal government wastes so much, and called for a simplified tax code and funding cuts without exceptions.

“We need to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk said. “And that inevitably brings with it some temporary hardship, but it ensures long-term prosperity.”

Trump plans to have the Tesla and SpaceX CEO lead a government commission in his potential administration to look at cutting federal spending. Musk said he could cut the $6.75 trillion federal budget by “at least.” 2 trillion dollars. He would be joined on the commission by Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and possibly former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, who is widely considered to be in the running Conspiracy theorists.