In Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill: Volume 1, the Bride doesn’t just seek revenge—she draws blood with elegance, precision, and a katana. Elon Musk, freshly unshackled from his stint inside Trump’s government, seems to be channelling the same energy—only this time, the blade is fiscal discipline, and the target is Donald Trump’s so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill.”On Wednesday, Musk tweeted to his 180 million followers with a message that could’ve come straight out of Tarantino’s trailer: “Call your Senator. Call your Congressman. Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.” Attached was a photoshopped poster of Kill Bill, with Trump’s face clumsily plastered over David Carradine’s and the bill clutched like a samurai scroll of doom.The Bill in question? H.R.1, passed by the House on May 22. A sprawling $4 trillion mega-package that extends Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, pumps funds into border security, expands defence spending—and raises the debt ceiling to eyewatering new heights. MAGA Republicans call it “historic.” Musk calls it “a disgusting abomination.”
From DOGE to Doomsayer
Only days ago, Musk was working inside the belly of the beast as head of DOGE—Trump’s ironically titled Department of Government Efficiency. Appointed as a “special government employee,” he spent 130 days trying to trim Washington’s flab. Today, he’s torching it from the outside.“This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination,” Musk posted on X. “Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong.”He followed up with a flurry of economic memes, deficit graphs, and that now-viral Kill Bill parody poster, putting him squarely at odds with the very president who once called him “America’s Tech Da Vinci.”
Debt Slavery and GOP Dissonance
Musk didn’t stop at aesthetics. He’s gone full Paul Revere with PowerPoint slides. Calling the bill “Debt Slavery,” he warned that America is “in the fast lane to fiscal suicide.” By his math, the legislation could blow the deficit past $2.5 trillion and inflate the national debt by as much as $5 trillion—figures echoed, though slightly more cautiously, by the Congressional Budget Office.“This spending bill contains the largest increase in the debt ceiling in US history!” Musk wrote. “Congress is making America bankrupt.”Some in the GOP are rattled. Musk was the largest Republican donor of the 2024 election cycle—and now he’s threatening to fund primary challenges against any lawmaker backing the bill. “In November next year, we fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” he posted, turning his money cannon on the very party he helped prop up.
Trump’s Cool, Congress’s Calculus
The White House, meanwhile, responded with Trumpian defiance. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt shrugged it off: “This is one big, beautiful bill, and he’s sticking to it.”Trump even posted a nostalgic screenshot of Musk thanking him for the DOGE appointment—equal parts reminder and rebuke. House Speaker Mike Johnson tried to reach out. Musk left him on read, then shared a video clip of Johnson’s defence of the bill with a blunt caption: “We need a new bill that doesn’t grow the deficit.”Senator Kevin Cramer was less concerned. “I don’t think very many senators are that interested in what Elon has to say,” he told reporters. “It’s amusing. But we’re serious policymakers.”
Elon and Donald: The Fallout
Some men campaign. Elon Musk campaigned on something. What that “something” was, in hindsight, feels like a mix of politics, pharmaceuticals, vanity, and chaos theory.The Ketamine CandidateMusk’s drug use didn’t begin with the Trump campaign—it simply became more theatrical. While the Wall Street Journal had reported as early as 2023 that Tesla board members were alarmed by his use of Ambien, The New York Times now paints a darker picture.By 2024, Musk was reportedly taking ketamine so frequently it affected his bladder function. MDMA and psilocybin mushrooms followed, often at private parties across the globe. One image reviewed by NYT showed a pill organiser containing around 20 substances—some labelled as Adderall.The effect? Public incoherence, private panic. What Musk claimed was bi-weekly therapeutic use looked, to many insiders, like daily microcosmic meltdown.The Campaign Trail Becomes a Custody BattleMusk didn’t just endorse Trump—he practically embedded himself in the campaign. He appeared at rallies, brought his son X into the Oval Office, and travelled with the child on the trail.Grimes, the boy’s mother, objected—saying it violated a custody agreement. But that was just one chapter in Musk’s domestic soap opera. In February, right-wing influencer Ashley St. Clair revealed she had given birth to Musk’s 14th child. She claimed Musk offered $15 million and $100,000 a month to keep it quiet. When she refused, Musk filed for a gag order.Simultaneously, Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis was pregnant with two more of Musk’s children via surrogate—reportedly unaware of St. Clair. If his public persona was spiralling, his private life was already in freefall.Governing with a ChainsawInside the administration, things were just as unhinged. After Trump’s win, Musk helped design DOGE, rented a cottage at Mar-a-Lago, and joined transition calls with foreign leaders. But colleagues quickly became alarmed.He insulted cabinet members, showed up disoriented to briefings, and raised eyebrows at the inauguration with what neuroscientist Philip Low later condemned as a Nazi-style salute. At CPAC, he donned sunglasses, accepted a chainsaw on stage, and delivered a performance that many said looked more like Burning Man than Beltway.His exit in May 2025 wasn’t shocking. The only surprise was that it hadn’t come sooner.Exit WoundsMusk’s departure from government wasn’t a clean break. It was a scorched-earth retreat. He arrived as a tech messiah, a billionaire savant here to trim the fat of government. He left as a psychedelic Cassandra—raging on social media, estranged from his allies, and battling legislation he once helped shape.