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Billionaire Elon Musk has made personal appeals to US President Donald Trump to reverse the sweeping tariffs, but the attempted intervention, confirmed by two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private talks, has not brought success so far, the Washington Post reported. 

Over the weekend, as Elon Musk launched into a barrage of social media posts criticizing one of the lead White House advisers for Trump's aggressive tariff plan, Musk was going over that same official's head - and making personal appeals to Trump, per the report.

The appeal has not brought success so far, it reported. 

On Monday, Musk posted a video to X in which the late conservative economist Milton Friedman promoted the benefits of international trade cooperation - "the impersonal operation of prices," as he put it - breaking down the sources of the materials that go into a simple wooden pencil, Washington Post reported. 

This marks the highest-profile disagreement between the president and one of his key advisers, per the report. Musk had clashed with Trump over trade before. In 2020, Tesla sued Trump administration over earlier tariffs. 

On Saturday, Musk took aim at US administration official who has been key to developing the tariff plans, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, lighting into his credentials. "A PhD in Econ from Harvard is a bad thing, not a good thing," Musk wrote, Washington Post reported. 

In an interview with Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini over the weekend, Musk also said he would like to see a "free trade zone" between Europe and the US. 

Musk has lost the most of any person on Earth in past few days. On Friday, his net worth declined by $20 billion - with year-to-date declines totaling over $130 billion, Fortune reported Monday.