Trump and Musk: Could a Second Trump Term Recapture Pre-COVID Business Success?

Former President Donald Trump has said he’s ready to help businesses grow again and achieve success not seen in the United States since before the COVID pandemic.

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Trump made the comments during a conversation on X with Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk. Among the topics covered during the wide-ranging talk, the two discussed the economy, deregulation and the pandemic.

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Trump on Deregulation

During their conversation, Musk mentioned President Ronald Reagan and deregulation, along with the need for more “sensible regulation.”

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Trump responded, “We set a record, we did more deregulation and more restrictions on all of the different businesses than any other president. Remember, I had the rule for every one we put in, you have to get rid of a 10 or 12.”

Previously, among other ideas he has discussed for a second term, Trump had talked about plans to scale back the power of U.S. financial regulators. Congress expanded governmental oversight of the financial industry to prevent a repeat of the global banking meltdown from 2008.

Per Reuters, “Donald Trump would likely renew his efforts to scale back those reforms, if elected, as well as pare protections for small-scale investors and borrowers, and allow companies to raise money with less scrutiny, according to the interviews and proposals from groups positioned to influence a new conservative administration.”

Trump on Tax Cuts

During the conversation with Musk, Trump said his administration was on a path to start reducing the country’s debt and reduce taxes even more.

According to Trump, “I gave the largest tax cuts and we were gonna reduce taxes still further for middle income people, not only businesses. But we did it for businesses because they’re the ones that, that’s why we had the great job numbers. But we were set to really start reducing debt.”

Despite Trump’s repeated claims his signature tax cuts in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 were the largest ever provided, fact checkers at places like CNN “…have found that his tax cut law was not the largest in history, either in percentage of gross domestic product or in inflation-adjusted dollars.”

The Economy and the Election

The conversation with Musk about tax cuts came as Trump and Kamala Harris discuss their plans for those cuts and the economy during stops on their campaign trails. Trump-era tax cuts are set to after 2025, so both presidential candidates have been talking about their plans to offer Americans financial relief amid inflation concerns and soaring prices.

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“Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are in a tax policy arms race, copying and one-upping each other’s proposals in a bid to court key battleground state voting blocs ahead of a looming battle in Washington to rewrite the tax code,” according to Bloomberg.

Trump has also criticized the Biden administration for spending that has added to the nation’s debt and not helped average Americans. On the flip side, President Biden and Harris have said Trump’s plans favor the rich and would sink the country into even further debt.

_{Editor’s note on election coverage: GOBankingRates is nonpartisan and strives to cover all aspects of the economy objectively and present balanced reports on politically focused finance stories. You can find more coverage of this topic on GOBankingRates.com.}

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This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com: Trump and Musk: Could a Second Trump Term Recapture Pre-COVID Business Success?