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Treasury 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 (DOGE)’s efforts to cut government spending.
Bannon helmed 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 Ways & Means 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.
