Elon Musk tried unsuccessfully to convince Trump to reverse his tariffs surge

The The Washington Post revealed this weekend that South African tycoon Elon Musk, who also heads the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) in the administration of president Donald Trump, has made numerous appeals to the U.S. leader to reverse the recent wave of tariffsimposed on 180 countries and territories around the world. The media outlet detailed that, even in the face of the closeness between the owner of X and the Republican leader, Musk has failed to convince Trump to suspend his most recent tariff actions.

According to what was reported by the Post, two people familiar with the approaches and who decided to speak to the newspaper on condition of anonymity explained that Musk has been insistent, and that Trump, even though he would have shown some openness to rethink the tariffs at first, has reaffirmed his plans and has shown himself fully convinced that his tariff strategy will yield results. Despite this, Musk turned to X to express his opposition to the tariffs, as tensions mounted over the planned 50% tariff on imports from China.

Precedents for tension

Far from this being the first time Musk and Trump have clashed over the tariff issue, the truth is that the president and the South African tycoon have had several disagreements in the past over the issue. One of the most notorious was during the end of the first presidency, when the company Tesla - which Musk owns - decided to sue the Republican administration in 2020 to challenge previous tariffs. While Musk eventually called off the lawsuit and even strongly rebuked his team after the decision due to his legal action, the truth is that the owner of X supported the measure in the beginning.

While Musk's disagreement with Trump over his tariff strategy has not been expressed publicly against the Republican leader, the Tesla owner has done so against other members of his administration, such as the White House trade adviser Peter Navarro. However, many of Musk's allies in the tech and business world did speak out against Trump's tariff actions, with some of these executing their own demarches to officials such as Vice President JD Vance. One of these was investor Joe Lonsdale, who even stated publicly that "I argued to friends in the administration in recent days that tariffs would hurt American companies more than Chinese ones."