Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) slammed what he called senior Trump adviser Elon Musk’s loyalties to billionaires Thursday after Musk accused the Arizona senator and decorated combat veteran of putting other countries ahead of the United States, the latest salvo in their rancorous feud.
“I mean, who is Elon standing with at this point? A bunch of billionaires,” Kelly said on CNN when asked about Musk’s latest attack against his character.
Musk had called Kelly a “traitor” on his social platform X earlier this month, after Kelly visited Ukraine to determine how fluctuating U.S. support for the country was affecting the morale of Ukrainians.
On Thursday, Musk, who was born in South Africa and became a citizen of Canada and then the United States, doubled down in an interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier on his accusation that Kelly is not loyal to the United States.
“I think somebody should … care about the interests of the United States above the interests of another country. If they don’t, they’re a traitor,” Musk said.
When Baier noted Kelly is a decorated veteran, former astronaut and sitting senator, Musk didn’t budge.
“That doesn’t mean it’s OK for him to put the interests of another country above America,” he said.
When asked about Musk’s latest attack, Kelly told CNN’s Erin Burnett that he wasn’t sure whether it deserved a response but then ticked off his long list of service to the nation.
“I’ve spent an entire career standing up for our country, defending our country, flying in combat over Iraq, flying in space, on the space shuttle, serving in the United States Senate,” he said. “My entire life has been about serving this country.”
He then contrasted his record to Musk’s efforts as the leader of the Department of Government Efficiency to push federal workers out of their jobs and shutter long-standing federal agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Democrats have also jumped on Musk’s comment that Social Security is “the biggest Ponzi scheme of all time,” accusing him of wanting to cut the program to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy.
“I mean, who is Elon standing with at this point? A bunch of billionaires. It seems to me that some folks in this administration sort of switched,” he added.
Kelly then implicitly questioned Musk’s loyalty to the nation by pointing out that his stance on the Ukraine-Russia war aligns with Russian President Vladimir Putin, a longtime adversary of the United States.
“I would put Elon at this point in the category of being much closer to Russia on this issue,” the senator said.
“I want this thing to end as much as anybody,” he continued of the war. “But he throws this ‘traitor’ word around, at least with regards to me, fairly freely. I don’t think he’s a serious guy, and he hasn’t given this a lot of thought.”
