According to recordings and social media posts obtained by CNN’s K-File, Ramswamy once described Musk, the Tesla billionaire who is now his co-director at the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), as a puppet of the Chinese government.

Vivek Ramaswamy, tapped by President-elect Donald Trump to lead a commission to slash government spending alongside Elon Musk, excoriated his new partner as a pupped of China’s governing Communist Party.

CNN’s KFile dug into Ramaswamy’s long history of attacking Musk, calling him a “circus monkey,” saying his company Tesla is “beholden” to the communist state, and that “Tesla and SpaceX quite likely would not exist as successful businesses if it were not for the use of public funding.