Musk Continues Anti-Tariff Tirade at Peter Navarro: ‘Dumber than a Sack of Bricks’

Elon Musk has continued his public feud with Trump economic adviser Peter Navarro for his role in implementing reciprocal tariffs, calling him a “moron” and “retard” who is “dumber than a sack of bricks.”

Musk, who leads the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), began publicly criticizing Navarro, President Donald Trump’s senior counselor for trade and manufacturing, in a series of Saturday X posts. 

“A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing,” the tech mogul wrote of Navarro’s degree. “Results in the ego/brains>>1 problem.”

In another comment that has since been deleted, Musk argued that Navarro “ain’t built sh*t.”

Stock in Tesla, Musk’s electric vehicle (EV) company, has lost more than 38 percent of its value so far this year, the Washington Post reported.

The billionaire DOGE chief’s comments came after Trump unveiled status quo-breaking tariffs from the White House last week, saying, “They charge us, we charge them.”

Navarro responded to Musk’s initial insults during a Monday CNBC appearance, calling him a “car assembler” who wants to keep his costs down:

https://twitter.com/EdKrassen/status/1909230830691463548

Look, Elon Musk and his DOGE team is making contributions to America in terms of waste, fraud, and abuse. And that’s a very good thing for this country and the American people. […] But he’s not a car manufacturer, he’s a car assembler, in many cases.

If you go to his Texas plant, a good part of the engines that he gets — which, in the EV case — is the batteries come from Japan and come from China. The electronics come from Taiwan… What we want, and the difference is in our thinking and Elon’s on this, is that we want the tires made in Akron. We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here.

This business model where BMW and Mercedes come in to Spartanburg, South Carolina, and have us assemble German engines and Austrian transmissions — that doesn’t work for America. It’s bad for our economics. It’s bad for our national security. 

“And with Elon, it’s fine. He’s a car man — he’s a car person. That’s what he does. And he wants the cheap foreign parts. And we understand that,” Navarro added. 

While Navarro claimed that the rift between himself and Musk is “no big deal,” the Tesla CEO continued his tirade in a series of Tuesday X posts. 

“Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false,” Musk said in response to the Trump adviser’s claims on CNBC:

“Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks,” he added in a follow-up post, citing a 2023 Kelly Blue Book study.

Musk then jabbed at the fictional trade expert that Navarro included in his 2011 book Death by China, “Ron Vara,” which is an anagram of the economy counselor’s surname:

“By any definition whatsoever, Tesla is the most vertically integrated auto manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content,” Musk wrote. “Navarro should ask the fake expert he invented, Ron Vara.”

In another play on Navarro’s name, the tech entrepreneur called him “Peter Retarrdo”:

“I’d like to apologize to bricks for calling Peter Retarrdo dumber than a sack of bricks. That was so unfair to bricks,” Musk wrote in yet another follow-up:

When asked about the public spat between the two high-level Trump administration officials on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said, “boys will be boys”:

Look, these are obviously two individuals who have very different views on trade and on tariffs. Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue. And, you guys should all be very grateful that we have the most transparent administration in history. And I think it also speaks to the president’s willingness to hear from all sides — that he has people at the highest levels of this government and this White House who have very diverse opinions on very diverse issues, but the president takes all opinions in mind, and then he makes the best decision based on the best interests of the American public. 

Musk has been a longtime critic of tariffs, with Tesla filing a lawsuit during Trump’s first term in a bid to overturn the tax on Chinese imports, the Washington Post reported.

The billionaire’s brother and fellow Tesla board member, Kimbal Musk, has also criticized the president’s tariffs and Navarro’s role in them, calling the adviser a “C-minus student” in a Tuesday post:

“Who would have thought that Trump was actually the most high tax American President in generations,” Kimbal wrote in another post. “Through his tariff strategy, Trump has implemented a structural, permanent tax on the American consumer.”

The Tesla brothers’ negative remarks came just a month after Trump promoted Tesla vehicles at the White House. 

On Monday, Trump said that “virtually every country wants to negotiate,” as the tariffs are set to take effect Wednesday, Breitbart News reported.

China, on the other hand, has slapped the U.S. with its own 34 percent retaliatory tariff, prompting the Trump administration to levy a staggering 104 percent tariff on the country to take effect at midnight on Tuesday. 

Olivia Rondeau is a politics reporter for Breitbart News based in Washington, D.C. Find her on X/Twitter and Instagram.