Top White House trade adviser Peter Navarro denied Sunday that there are tensions between him and tech mogul Elon Musk, another senior Trump adviser, days after the billionaire tech mogul called the Harvard-trained economist a “moron.”
“Everything’s fine with Elon,” Navarro told NBC News’ “Meet the Press,” adding with a laugh, “I’ve been called worse.”
Navarro addressed his public spat with Musk in a wide-ranging interview about the state of the economy and stock market in the days after Trump imposed, and then temporarily reduced, sweeping tariffs on U.S. trading partners.
In a CNBC interview earlier this week, Navarro was questioned about Musk’s stated support for reducing barriers to trade, revealing apparent differences within the administration on Trump’s tariff plan.
“We all understand in the White House, and the American people understand, that Elon’s a car manufacturer,” Navarro said in the interview. “But he’s not a car manufacturer, he’s a car assembler in many cases.”
The White House trade adviser went on to explain that Musk imports parts for the cars that Tesla makes from Japan, China and Taiwan.
“The difference is, in our thinking and Elon’s on this, is that we want the tires made in Akron,” Navarro added. “We want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. We want the engines made in Flint and Saginaw. And we want the cars manufactured here.”
The Monday CNBC interview prompted Musk to criticize Navarro in a series of posts on X. Musk first called Navarro a “moron,” before adding that Tesla “has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.” He followed that with a sarcastic apology, saying the comparison was was “so unfair to bricks.”
On Sunday, Navarro laughed off reports of tensions between the two men, telling “Meet the Press” moderator Kristen Welker, “Elon and I are agreeing. It’s not an issue.”
He also praised Musk’s work with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, an initiative that has led the Trump administration’s efforts to lay off thousands of workers in the federal government as part of broader stated goal of targeting “waste, fraud and abuse.”
“Elon is doing a very good job with his team with waste, fraud and abuse,” Navarro said, echoing remarks he made to CNBC. “That’s a tremendous contribution to America.”
After Trump announced details of his tariffs at the start of April, Musk has broken with the administration, saying last weekend that he’d like to see a “zero tariff situation” between the U.S. and Europe.
Then, on Wednesday, Trump temporarily delayed the bulk of reciprocal tariffs he is planning, keeping 10% duties on most nations’ goods for 90 days while the administration works on reaching agreements with trading partners.
Navarro on Sunday defended Trump’s original decision to issue steep hikes on tariffs and defended the president’s limited reversal this week, saying the temporary reduction has made way for negotiations with other countries.
“This is unfolding exactly like we thought it would, in a dominant scenario,” he said, adding later: “We’ve got 90 deals in 90 days possibly pending here, and it was par for the course. Actually, it was a birdie for President Trump to do exactly what he did, which was pause for 90 days, and we’re going to get this done for the American people.”
When Trump temporarly reduced a majority of the tariffs last week, he wrote in a social media post that 75 countries had approached the U.S. looking to negotiate trade deals.
When asked Sunday which countries were in negotiations with the U.S., Navarro did not provide a number, but listed the United Kingdom, the European Union, India, Japan, South Korea and Israel as some of the nations “lining up outside the door of Jamieson Greer,” the U.S. trade representative.
One country Navarro didn’t name is China, which the U.S. has hit with even more tariffs, totaling 145%. Beijing has responded by raising retaliatory tariffs on the U.S. to 125%. Asked whether the Trump administration is talking to China, Navarro told Welker, “We have opened up our invitation to them,” and accused the country of killing people with fentanyl and taking American factories and jobs.
Navarro also addressed the tariff exemptions that the U.S. issued last week on certain electronics like smartphones and computers, saying those products were targeted because they contain microchips — although he did not agree that they were being exempted.
“What we’re doing with chips — a problem, interestingly, for chips, because it’s very complex stuff — is that we don’t buy a lot of chips, like in bags. We buy them in products,” Navarro said. “So what Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick is going to do — is doing it as we speak — is an investigation of the chip supply chain. The goal is stability and resilience, and you will see actions taken based on those investigations.”
In a separate interview Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” Lutnick himself addressed the move, signaling that the exemption from reciprocal tariffs on these electronics was only temporary and a new round of duties targeting semiconductor chips would be forthcoming.
“All those products are going to come under semiconductors, and they’re going to have a special-focus type of tariff to make sure that those products get reshored,” Lutnick said, adding later, “So what Trump’s doing is he’s saying they’re exempt from the reciprocal tariffs, but they’re included in the semiconductor tariffs, which are coming in probably a month or two. So these are coming soon.”