An extremely uncomfortable moment was captured on camera when Elon Musk dodged a question about President Donald Trump during a live interview.
The billionaire was interviewed at the SpaceX headquarters just outside of Brownsville, Texas, last Thursday (May 29), with the full conversation being released on Sunday (June 1).
During the chat, David Pogue from CBS questioned Musk about how his businesses are impacted by the president’s new tariffs, asking: “I noticed that all of your businesses involve a lot of components, a lot of parts, do the tariffs and the trade wars affect any of this?”
Keeping it short, Musk replied: “You know, tariffs always affect things a little bit.”
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Pogue pushed further, responding with: “I’m wondering what your thought is on the ban on foreign students, the proposal, I mean you were one of those kids, right?”
However, it didn’t seem like the mogul was keen to be asked about his thoughts on Trump’s policies.
Instead, the world’s richest man said: “Yeah… I think we wanna stick to the subject of the day which is spaceships as opposed to presidential policy.”
In response, Pogue said: “Oh okay, I was told anything’s good.”
To which Musk replied: “No.”
It made for awkward viewing just days after the Tesla boss announced that he was departing from his role in government as an unelected official.
After forming a close friendship with Trump during last year’s presidential election, Musk was appointed to the role of head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Since then, Musk has spent the last few months hacking away at the federal budget as part of DOGE’s mission to cut back on government spending.
At the start of his new role, Musk promised that he would cut $2 trillion from federal spending but DOGE has claimed to have saved $175 billion from the government budget in the last four months through various methods including the canceling of contracts, asset sales and making mass layoffs.
However, it’s not clear whether these savings will stick.
Just hours prior to Musk’s departure announcement, the billionaire revealed that he wasn’t too happy about the president’s new budget plan.
Speaking to CBS Sunday Morning, Musk said: “I was disappointed to see the massive spending bill, frankly, which increases the budget deficit, not just decreases it, and undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing.”
Titled the ‘Big, Beautiful Bill’, the new budget is promising tax cuts and further military spending, while cutting some federal health and energy programs.
Musk went on to say: “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful, but I don’t know if it can be both.”