Peter Navarro and Elon Musk’s nasty feud became so public that Karoline Leavitt was asked about it in an April 2025 White House press briefing, but it wasn’t the first time the Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy director beefed with someone in Trumpland. Notably, Navarro came to blows with former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on more than one occasion.
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Okay, so we can’t not start with an overview of Navarro’s feud with Musk. Their drama began after Navarro, advocating for tariffs, not-so-subtly shaded Tesla’s processes, complaining that too many of Musk’s cars were built with foreign-manufactured parts. Musk responded via X (previously Twitter), fact-checking and insulting Navarro in one fell swoop. “Navarro is truly a moron. What he says here is demonstrably false,” he wrote. He didn’t end it there. The billionaire followed up with yet another zinger: “Tesla has the most American-made cars. Navarro is dumber than a sack of bricks.” Tell us how you really feel, much. As for Leavitt’s stance on the whole thing, she joked of the situation, “Boys will be boys, and we will let their public sparring continue” (via AP).
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Back to Mnuchin’s beef with Navarro, some may remember that in May 2018 the two made headlines for another explosive war of words. In that particular instance, they were in Beijing as part of trade talks with China. Though their exact comments were not made public, insiders told CNN that Navarro had screamed and even sworn at Mnuchin over not being included in some of the talks. This, right outside a Chinese government building. In 2020, there was another dramatic blow-up between the two, this time over TikTok and in the Oval Office. Navarro slammed the leak, claiming to The Washington Post it had been exaggerated. Even so, he didn’t deny tension.
Peter Navarro’s antics got him into trouble
Another Trumpland figure who Peter Navarro beefed with was former director of the National Economic Council (and his boss), Gary Cohn. It’s no secret that the two disagreed on economic policies, what with Navarro a diehard tariffs man and Cohn a proponent of open trade. However, in 2018, a particularly juicy piece of intel came out. Speaking to CNBC, an insider revealed that under the instructions of then-White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Cohn had to be CCed on anything Navarro sent. “The chief wanted him under control,” the source claimed. The drama of it all!
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At the time that was made public, Cohn had resigned, effectively setting Navarro free. Given that the aforementioned screaming sesh in China and fight in the Oval Office took place after Cohn’s exit, that might not have been for the best.
Over the years, Navarro has made it pretty clear that he’s not afraid to publicly diss his colleagues — but don’t expect his tiff with Elon Musk to mark a turning point. As an insider pointed out to NBC News, “[Navarro] went to jail for President Trump. I’m not sure how much more you could show loyalty, which is what Trump values. Sure, Elon is his guy and they get along great, but there is just another level there … If this turns out to be an all-out war, I very much doubt Peter is going to come out on the wrong end of it.” Time will tell if Musk and Trump’s friendship will weather this storm. There have been signs Trump is already trying to ice Musk out, so this may not bode well. Then again, we kind of miss Musk trolling Trump, so for entertainment purposes, that might be a win for us all.
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