A cohort of Senate Republicans already troubled by the House GOP’s version of President Donald Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ found a common ally in Elon Musk, who again trashed the legislation on Tuesday.

Musk, who just exited his tenure as Trump’s efficiency bloodhound leading the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) last week, doubled down on his position that the House’s reconciliation package was an ‘abomination.’

‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,’ Musk said on X. ‘This massive, outrageous, pork-filled congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.’

‘Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong,’ he continued. ‘You know it.’

Senate Republicans have already vowed to make changes to the colossal bill, which includes the president’s desires on tax, energy, immigration, defense and national debt policies. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., lauded Musk for his work with DOGE, but noted that the Senate GOP and the tech-billionaire had ‘a difference of opinion.’

He didn’t believe that Musk’s comments would derail the bill entirely in the upper chamber, either. Thune has pledged to get the bill to the president’s desk by Independence Day. 

‘The legislation, as passed by the House, can be approved here in the Senate, can be strengthened in the Senate, in a number of ways,’ Thune said. ‘We intend to do that, but when it’s all said and done, we’ll send it back to the House and hope that they can pass it and put it on the president’s desk.’

Still, fractures have emerged among lawmakers, with some viewing the bill through the same lens as Musk.

‘Well, he has some of the same skepticism I have, you know, towards the big, beautiful bill,’ said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky.

Paul has vowed not to support the bill as is without a serious overhaul to the legislation that would nix a $5 trillion increase to the nation’s debt ceiling — a stance that has gotten him into hot water with Trump.

Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., has similarly pledged not to support the bill unless much steeper spending cuts are achieved. The House’s product includes $1.5 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade, but Johnson would like to see a return to pre-pandemic spending levels, which would effectively amount to a roughly $6 trillion cut in spending.

‘I share his concerns,’ Johnson said of Musk. ‘I also appreciate what he and President Trump did with his DOGE effort.’

And Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, a fiscal hawk whose views are closely aligned with Johnson’s, argued in response to the tech billionaire’s social media post that ‘federal spending has become excessive.’

‘The resulting inflation harms Americans and weaponizes government,’ Lee said on X. ‘The Senate can make this bill better. It must now do so.’

Other Senate Republicans, including those with outstanding concerns with the current legislation, were much less receptive to Musk’s tirade against the bill.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has remained steadfast in his position that he would not support the current Medicaid proposals in the House’s bill, especially if they cut benefits to his constituents and people across the country.

When asked his reaction to Musk’s rant, he shrugged, ‘Well, he’s entitled to his opinion, it’s a free country.’

Sen. Jim Justice, R-W.V., who has expressed reservations on the contents of the megabill, was more blunt.

‘My reaction to that is just simply this — and y’all may like this or not like this — but you know, Donald Trump is our president, not Elon Musk,’ he said. 

Conservative energy leaders are celebrating President Donald Trump’s latest effort to unleash American drilling. 

The Department of the Interior announced a proposal Monday to rescind President Joe Biden’s restrictions on oil and gas development in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska. 

Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said a Biden-era 2024 Bureau of Land Management (BLM) rule that restricted energy development for more than half of the 23 million acres on Alaska’s North Slope ignored the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act of 1976. 

‘The National Petroleum Reserve (NPR), created by Congress over a century ago to secure America’s energy supply, supports responsible oil development on 13 million acres,’ Frank Lasee, president of Truth in Energy and Climate, said in a statement shared with Fox News Digital. 

‘President Biden’s drilling ban in Alaska undermined energy security, increasing reliance on foreign oil, raising gasoline prices and fueling inflation through higher transportation costs,’ Lasee added. ‘Resuming drilling puts economic growth and energy independence ahead of climate ideology in a place almost no regular American will ever visit.’

Consistent with Trump’s executive orders, the proposed revision reverts to regulations that were in place prior to May 7, 2024, which Lasee called a ‘commendable’ prioritization of ‘American energy needs and economic well-being while adhering to the law.’

‘President Biden never should have halted congressionally sanctioned oil drilling in Alaska,’ said Sterling Burnett, director of the Arthur B. Robinson Center on Climate and Environmental Policy at the Heartland Institute. ‘Trump is to be applauded, both for putting Americans’ energy needs and our economic well-being first and for following the law by opening these areas back up for production.’

According to the Department of Interior, the 2024 rule provisions lacked ‘a basis in the Naval Petroleum Reserves Production Act’ and undermined the BLM’s congressional obligation to oversee timely leasing in the region. 

‘President Trump’s move to restore drilling in Alaska’s Arctic region is a bold and necessary step toward reclaiming American energy independence,’ Jason Isaac, CEO of the American Energy Institute, said. 

Trump vowed to unleash American energy on the campaign trail in 2024 and signed executive orders on the first day of his second term to rescind Biden-era climate policies. 

‘By reversing Biden’s disastrous restrictions on 13 million acres, Trump is unleashing the abundant resources that power our economy, lower energy costs and strengthen national security. This is a victory for American workers, consumers and allies who rely on stable, affordable energy,’ Isaac added. 

Steve Milloy, senior policy fellow at the Energy & Environment Legal Institute, called the announcement ‘more good news from the Trump administration in rolling back more of Biden’s war on fossil fuels.’

‘Promises made. Promises kept. But the Trump administration will need to go further to give investors confidence that the Alaska leases will actually be viable. Radical climate activists will resort to the courts and scare off investors. There likely needs to be a legislative solution to that,’ Milloy added.

Trump and his Republican allies are seeking to roll back some of Biden’s green energy initiatives through budget reconciliation on Trump’s ‘big, beautiful bill.’

‘The National Petroleum Reserve (NPR) was created more than 100 years ago specifically to provide a supply of oil for America’s energy security. That energy security can be achieved by responsibly developing our oil reserves, including in the Gulf of America, our vast shale oil deposits in America’s heartland and, now, thankfully, the 13 million acres of the NPR that are going to be developed,’ said Gregory Whitestone, CO2 Coalition executive director.

‘Continuation of the Biden administration’s drilling ban would have resulted in a greater reliance on foreign supplies of oil (and) increases in gasoline prices and the inflationary spiral across all sectors of the American economy from increased transportation costs,’ Whitestone added. 

Fox News Digital sat down with SkillStorm CEO Justin Vianello, who addressed issues the federal government faces hiring workers, sometimes raising national security concerns, and explained what his company is doing to streamline that process.

The federal government has struggled for decades with staffing issues in key roles like cybersecurity, tech and other high-skill areas, an issue flagged as far back as 2001, according to the Government Accountability Office. Vianello discussed how SkillStorm is attempting to solve those issues. 

‘If we look at the procurement process and the way it’s been structured, there’s significant delays,’ Vianello told Fox News Digital. ‘So, it can take years to actually get to a point where a solicitation is actually awarded. And then, ironically or paradoxically, post that award, the agency will expect … the particular company to be able to deliver a team in 10 days. So, this process is inefficient and somewhat outdated.’

Vianello explained that the current hiring process is ‘lengthy’ and ‘laborious,’ sometimes taking years rather than months and creating delays that teams need to properly mobilize and deploy. 

‘One of the solutions to that issue is to actually allow for an on-ramp time where people can spend between two to four months to custom build teams that have the right skills, that have (the) right certifications that are based in the right locations to rapidly deploy teams and to accelerate IT transformation and automation. And that’s really where the SkillStorm model comes in,’ Vianello said. 

Vianello says the company has spent millions of dollars in recent years building a Performance Acceleration Center for Excellence that is essentially a learning management training system with a customized curriculum and content along with a ‘stable of trainers’ in a position to ‘rapidly upskill and deploy people.’

‘How do we leverage that infrastructure to build out a solution for the federal government?’ Vianello said. ‘Well, what we do is we leverage that infrastructure to accelerate and train teams. And the way the model works is we both bring people into our program. We train them for anywhere between 10 and 16 weeks. We pay them while we’re training them. We help them achieve their certification, and then we deploy them. And we recover the investment that we make by billing them hourly.’

That system, Vianello explained, means SkillStorm takes ‘all the risk up front’ and recovers it by billing hourly to the client. 

‘Now this is the perfect solution to being able to custom-build tech teams, create net new talent for the ecosystem and being able deploy these people over time. But the government is gonna have to change the procurement system to not require people to be deployed within 10 days but allow companies to build these teams over two, three, four months.’

Another issue, Vianello told Fox News Digital, is the current hiring process can get tied up with security clearances and become a national security risk. 

‘That’s absolutely part of it, but I think there’s a bigger issue here if you look more generally at our model and some of the issues that are facing the market,’ Vianello said. ‘Well, if you look at SkillStorm’s model, SkillStorm has an innovative cost-effective solution to custom-build U.S.-based tech teams for rapid deployment. 

‘Now, we have a student debt crisis in this country, and, at the same time, what are we doing? We’re offshoring our children’s roles to other countries, and we’re using visa holders to take up the place of entry-level tech roles. Now, if we don’t invest in programs like SkillStorm, if we do invest in these outcome-driven, apprenticeship-type programs, where’s the next generation of cybersecurity experts going to come from?

‘Where’s the new generation of AI innovators going to come from? This is a national security issue that is essential in driving innovation. Right now, there are 500,000 open cybersecurity roles as of January 2025. We are the domestic models, like these apprenticeship models, that can support that gap to make sure that we’re protecting national security.’

Former General Services Administration (GSA) head Emily Murphy, who previously spoke to Fox News Digital about the GSA’s work to streamline government in the era of DOGE, said she has ‘seen firsthand how outdated federal systems have become one of the most serious yet least discussed threats to national security.

‘Agencies charged with safeguarding cybersecurity and digital infrastructure are losing the talent battle to the private sector, and the slow, outdated process for onboarding cleared workers doesn’t match the urgency of today’s threats.’

Murphy explained that the federal government needs a ‘new pipeline’ that ‘delivers clearance-eligible, project-ready professionals trained on mission-specific tools.’

‘SkillStorm is doing exactly that, deploying ‘Stormers,’ technologists trained on specific tech platforms, at a significant discount. It’s a smarter, faster way to secure the talent our government urgently needs.

Vianello told Fox News Digital SkillStorm and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have similar goals in making government more efficient. 

I think DOGE is really focused on IT automation and IT transformation and doing it on an efficient and cost-effective basis,’ Vianello said. 

‘We believe, going forward, there’s probably going to be more of a push to less full-time employees and more of a push towards efficient contractors coming in and accelerating project delivery. So, again, this really does come back in our belief. 

‘To the solicitation process, how do we tighten it up? How do we make sure that once an award is made and that technology is implemented, it’s not outdated? Because, if that continues to happen, how are you going to continue to attract technologists, young technologists who want to be part of the change?’