Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Act isn’t so beautiful to everyone. Just ask Elon Musk.
The US president’s signature piece of legislation promises to cut taxes (again), create new tax exemptions, and muster up billions of dollars for deportation efforts. But it will also reduce social spending and balloon the federal deficit, a sore point for many fiscally conservative Republicans.
But as the pros and cons are debated amid the very public falling out of Trump and Musk, Irish insulation provider Kingspan, at least, has given it a tacit thumbs up.
This week, it said it would increase its US investment by $250 million, bringing its overall commitment to the Stateside roofing business to a whopping $1 billion.
“The One Big Beautiful Act, when enacted, should make the returns even more compelling,” it said in a statement.
Kingspan’s enthusiasm for the bill is perhaps understandable given the size of its ambitions. The largest “roofing mega-site” in the US “will be unrivalled”, it says.
The question is how other businesses may weigh up similar investment strategies in the context of Trump’s legislative wishlist.
US debt markets, meanwhile, were rocked by the tax bill last month given its threat to sharply increase the country’s deficit. The non-partisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates it will lead to an increase in the US national debt of more than $3.3 trillion (€2.9 trillion) over the next decade, increasing federal government debt held by the public to a record 125 per cent of GDP.
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The legislation is at the centre of a fierce battle among Republicans and must still pass the US Senate where changes could be made.
And so ultimately, for now at least, few will care what companies think. Especially when all eyes are fixed on Musk and his increasingly acerbic dismissal.
“A disgusting abomination,” said the world’s richest man of the tax agenda, in comments directed at the world’s most powerful man. With such protagonists, Kingspan’s views mean little.
