Musk to Navarro, Trump's trade adviser: 'A real jerk'. White House: they're guys

There is a lot of nervousness among the president's men. At the White House, in the hot days of global duties, a rivalry erupts between two of Donald Trump's closest people. A rivalry that erupts into insults in the case of Elon Musk, increasingly intolerant of the duties decided by the president, and his trade advisor Peter Navarro, an early collaborator of the tycoon - he was also there during the first term - and author of 'Donald Trump's duties will repair a system in crisis', a widely read speech in the Financial Times, which explains the president's comments on the subject. , a widely read op-ed in the Financial Times explaining the US administration's point of view.

The argument between Musk and Navarro is, needless to say, over tariffs. - Navarro called Musk a "car assembler" after the Tesla patron denigrated him as an "egomaniac who never built a f---. "When it comes to tariffs and trade, Elon is not a car manufacturer but a car assembler," Navarro told Cnbc, adding that many Tesla components come from Japan, China, Taiwan. "The difference between our thinking and Elon's is that we want the tyres made in Akron, we want the transmissions made in Indianapolis. He wants cheaper foreign car parts."

Such statements have aroused Musk's ire; in addition to personal attacks, Musk defended Tesla as 'the most vertically integrated car manufacturer in America with the highest percentage of US content'.

Musk took aim at Navarro as the administration official who played a key role in the development of the tariff plans: 'A doctorate in economics from Harvard,' he wrote in 'X', 'is a bad thing, not a good thing' (Navarro took a doctorate from Harvard in the 1980s). Then Musk himself, on 8 April today, went back on his heels and called him 'a real idiot' and 'dumber than a bag of bricks' as well as mocking him because in the past the Trump advisor has cited the work of 'Ron Vara', a fictional expert whose name is nothing more than an anagram of Navarro.

On X, Musk also responded to a user who posted a quote attributed to noted economist and commentator Thomas Sowell that claimed 'in every disaster in American history, there always seems to be a Harvard man in the middle'. "Yes," Musk wrote below the post, apparently referring to Navarro.