Elon Musk Pushes Back Against Stephen King’s Trump Message

Elon Musk is no stranger to calling out Stephen King online and now he has done so once again, criticizing the author’s opinion on a bipartisan border bill.

The $118 billion deal was released to lawmakers in early February. It included a boost in hiring Border Patrol agents and increasing the detention capacity of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other provisions. However, the 370-page package was immediately met with pushback from Republicans, including former President Donald Trump.

Amid tensions over the U.S-Mexico border, the former president called the bill “horrendous” and said it was a “very bad bill for [Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma’s] career.” Trump added that the border bill was a “death wish” for Republicans. The final vote on the bill was 50-49, with 45 Democrats and four Republicans supporting the bill’s advancement. It needed at least 60 “yes” votes to advance within the Senate and head to the House floor.

Now King—who has long been a vocal critic of Trump and frequently criticizes the Republican politician on social media—has blamed the former president for the fact that the bill didn’t advance.

“The Republicans torpedoed the bipartisan border bill at Trump’s request,” the horror author—known for novels such as Carrie and The Shining—posted on X, formerly Twitter. At the time of writing, his post had been viewed more than 430,000 times.

However, Musk disagreed with King, sharing his disapproval of the bill. “Did you read even a summary of that bill? It was a wolf in sheep’s clothing that would have made things worse!” Musk responded. At the time of writing, his post had been viewed more than 167,100 times.

Newsweek emailed spokespeople for King, Trump and Musk for comment on Tuesday.

Migration into the United States soared at the beginning of the year, and several politicians have described the immigration issue across the country’s southern border with Mexico as a crisis.

This isn’t the first time that Musk, born in South Africa, has weighed in on the topic. On September 28, the billionaire paid a visit to Eagle Pass, which is a city in Texas that borders Mexico, to meet with local politicians and law enforcement. His trip coincided with a surge in the number of people who had traveled to northern Mexico before crossing the U.S. border, seeking asylum.

While there, Musk did a video livestream on X and said: “As an immigrant to the United States, I am extremely pro-immigrant and I believe that we need a legally expanded immigration system and that we should let anyone in the country who is hardworking and honest and will be a contributor to the United States.”

Musk added: “We shouldn’t allow people in the country if they’re breaking the law… We want to do both things—smooth out legal immigration and stop a flow of people that is of such magnitude that we’re leading to a collapse of social services.”

On November 1, he reposted a video of people crossing the border. He added the caption: “The scale of illegal immigration across the US southern border is staggering.”

King is an outspoken Democrat and, in 2016, he was one of 450 writers to sign an open letter slamming Trump’s presidential candidacy.

The author is also often critical of Musk, particularly following the billionaire businessman’s 2022 acquisition of Twitter, which he has since renamed X. Musk is often known to publicly respond when the It writer mentions him and his platform.