Elon Musk Swipes at Trump’s Tariff Guy

Elon Musk advocates for no tariffs on international trade between the United States and the European Union.

During an event hosted on Saturday by Italy’s Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini, Musk said:

I hope it is agreed that both Europe and the United States should move, ideally, in my view, to a zero-tariff situation, effectively creating a free trade zone between Europe and Notrh America.

In addition, he said that he hoped there would be more freedom for people to move between the two regions.

That said, Musk’s views appear to be in stark contrast with US President Donald Trump’s approach. On April 2nd, he slammed a new batch of tariffs on literally every country in the world, including 20% levies on imports from the European Union (on certain goods).

At the same time, Musk took a jab at Peter Navarro, a White House aide and one of the chief proponents of Trump’s tariff plans.

“A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing. Results in the ego/braings >>1 problem.”

Navarro has a PhD in economics from Harvard University. Navarro also responded on Sunday, saying that Musk is “simply protecting his own interests,” among other things.

Reuters reports that the EU is seeking to present a unified front in the coming days against said tariffs, aiming to approve a first set of “targeted countermeasures” on targeted imports from the United States worth some $28 billion.

International stock markets are under serious tensions as major indices such as the S&P 500, NASDAQ 100, and the DJI charted critical losses during last week’s trading session, which turned out to be the worst since the COVID crash.

Bitcoin’s price is also down in the past 24 hours, trading at $78,000 at the time of this writing, decreasing by 6.4%. As CryptoPotato reported, the sudden crash resulted in major liquidations across the derivatives market, currently standing at more than $900 million.