
Treasury Department Secretary Scott Bessent addressed his reported clashes with Elon Musk during a congressional hearing on Wednesday, rejecting claims that he called Musk a “fraud” as “fake news.”
After Musk’s explosive fallout with President Trump last week, longtime Trump ally Steve Bannon told The Washington Post that the tech billionaire and Bessent had a physical altercation, which the White House denied, and that Bessent called Musk “a total fraud” in a heated exchange about the Musk-led Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) efforts to cut government spending.
Bannon led the conservative outlet Breitbart News for several years until his ouster from the site in 2018, following a brief stint in Trump’s first administration.
“I know Elon Musk body checked you at the White House,” Rep. Jimmy Gomez (D-Calif.) said to Bessent during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing on the Treasury Department.
“You know that?” Bessent shot back. “You believe what you read on Breitbart, that’s what you are telling this Congress.”
Coincidentally, Bessent recently quoted a Breitbart article on the social platform X in response to mass protests in Los Angeles against Trump’s immigration crackdown.
Gomez continued in the hearing, “If it’s too sensitive for you, I won’t ask that question,” prompting a retort from the South Carolina native with an apparent strike at South African-born Musk.
“I’ll take South Carolina over South Africa any day,” Bessent said.
Trump confirmed that Musk and Bessent had “a little bit of a shouting match” but denied it turned violent.
“They did have an argument, but I didn’t see a lot of physicality there,” the president told reporters at the White House on Monday.