Billionaire Mark Cuban trolled Tesla owner Elon Musk over his plan to slash the size of the federal government and cut massive amounts of spending.
Early Thursday morning, Musk shared a 2017 video of Cuban discussing the need to reduce the size of the government , captioning it “Good idea.” President Donald Trump tapped Musk to spearhead the so-called Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts to cut government spending earlier this year.
Cuban mocked Musk in response to his post, writing that he was “happy to help.”
He then shared advice for reducing government size while minimizing harm to local businesses and federal employees.
“I am all for cutting gov costs, then and now. I’m even more for efficiency,” Cuban wrote on X. “I would have a plan. Ready Fire Aim is not a plan. Cutting programs without knowing if they would have saved taxpayers more than they cost, or saved lives, is a mistake”.
“Tariffs, cutting programs, agencies and employees ALL AT ONCE, without doing an analysis of the impact on city, towns and states they impact, is going to backfire big time,” he added.
Cuban then suggested Musk’s approach was a “huge mistake.”
“What do you think the economic impact on their tax base is ? What do you think happens to home values ? What services will they have to end ? What about the local businesses ? How many people will lose their jobs and homes because this was done ALL AT ONCE,” he said.
“Cut federal government bloat in an organized fashion and it’s great. Ready Fire Aim and the uncertainty it creates is a huge mistake,” he added.
In the 2017 video, Cuban suggested that the federal government could reduce its workforce by at least one-third. He said that he wanted to make government more “efficient,” noting that reductions in the size of the government could help fund programs to help Americans who need them.
Cuban responded to the 2017 video of him on Thursday, defending his earlier stance on government spending cuts.
“Your listening skills are lacking. You left out the part where the reductions I mentioned, would allow more money to be passed through to those who need it,” he said. “Cut layers , increase funding to the people who need it most.”
Stories by Lauren Sforza
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