President-elect Donald Trump discovered a strong ally in Elon Musk, the tech mogul who infused his 2024 marketing campaign with 1 / 4 of a billion {dollars}. However Trump could be getting uninterested in Musk’s seemingly fixed presence, in accordance with New York Occasions reporter Maggie Haberman.
Haberman mentioned on Monday’s episode of the podcast “On with Kara Swisher” that Musk’s political rise hasn’t stunned her, as “Trump equates wealth with intelligence” — therefore the 2 males’s bromance. However, she mentioned, Musk seemingly hasn’t realized but that Trump “is a one-ring circus.”
“And Trump does complain a bit to individuals about how Musk is round so much,” she continued. “Jonathan Swan and I reported just lately with Ryan Mac that Musk has been staying at this cottage close to Mar-a-Lago that rents usually for greater than $2,000 an evening.”
Haberman, Swan and Mac reported final week that Musk has been staying at Banyan Cottage a couple of hundred toes from Trump’s major residence on the Florida resort, and that he has been sitting in on telephone calls with international leaders and attending personnel meetings for Trump’s incoming administration.
Haberman mentioned Monday that Musk has “actually parked himself in Trump’s face,” however joked that it’s unlikely the Tesla CEO will “transfer into the Lincoln Bed room” with the president-elect.
“I believe he’s going to attempt to have as a lot proximity to Trump as doable,” Haberman added. “That requires being given an workplace on the White Home campus, both within the Eisenhower Government Workplace Constructing, which is adjoining to the White Home, or the West Wing correct.”
She in the end wagered that Musk gained’t have an workplace on campus, nonetheless.
Trump introduced plans in November to appoint Musk as co-director of the Division of Authorities Effectivity, a federal advisory group geared toward slashing supposedly wasteful authorities spending.
Musk promoted Trump throughout his presidential run on X (previously Twitter), the platform that he acquired for $44 billion in 2022. He later joined Trump on the marketing campaign path, prompting concern from Democrats about his influential place and incomes the trending nickname “President Musk” on X.
“It undoubtedly bothers him,” Haberman mentioned Monday about Trump. “The ‘President Musk’ line was all the time going to be a solution to get him. And I imply, Trump’s not a wind-up toy, however there definitely are very particular issues that may [anger] him. And that was certainly one of them.”
The headlines about “President Musk” definitely appeared to pique Trump, who just isn’t identified for his generosity in sharing the highlight. Final month, he dismissed the concept that he’s taken a again seat to Musk as certainly one of his adversaries’ “hoaxes.”
