Navarro Ramps Up Tariffs Fight With Musk

Two of President Trump's top advisers are having a nasty war of words about tariffs. The spat involves Elon Musk and Peter Navarro, the latter being Trump's top trade adviser and a lead architect of the tariffs. Musk has spoken out against them, and Navarro again suggested on Monday in a CNBC interview that Musk should stay in his lane.

• "When it comes to tariffs and trade, we all understand in the White House—and the American people understand—that Elon is a car manufacturer," he said, per Reuters. Then came the real dig: "But he's not a car manufacturer. He's a car assembler," Navarro said, pointing out that lots of Tesla parts come from Japan, China, and Taiwan.

• Musk: Over the weekend, Musk posted a video of Navarro justifying all the tariffs and wrote, "A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing," per Politico. In response to another user's comment, the CEO added that Navarro "ain't built s--t." The Washington Post reports that Musk also made a direct appeal to Trump to unwind the tariffs, to no avail. And Musk posted a video of the late economist Milton Friedman explaining how even a simple pencil is made up of parts sourced from all over the world.
• Manufacturing: Navarro said Monday the slight from Musk was "no big deal," adding that he and Musk disagreed on fundamentals about manufacturing. "The difference is in our thinking and Elon's on this is that we want the tires made in Akron," he said. "We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw, and we want the cars manufactured here."

• Bigger picture: Axios also reports on the emerging split on tariffs, noting that Musk is far from alone in his view. More tech titans and hedge-fund billionaires are speaking out against them (Musk, Reid Hoffman, Bill Ackman, Stan Druckenmiller, etc.) while "America Firsters" such as Steve Bannon are defending them. "The tariffs fight is testing the durability—and compatibility—of the Trump-tech alliance."
• More tech friction: The New York Times amplifies the above story, noting that tech moguls spent millions courting Trump before the election, only to see tariffs put a major dent in their profits in a few short months. "Since the inauguration, the combined market value of Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta and Microsoft has fallen 22 percent to $10 trillion," notes the story. "And the tech-heavy Nasdaq index is down 21 percent." The gist of the story is that these moguls may have misinterpreted "how to succeed" in Trump's DC.

(More Peter Navarro stories.)