Since joining Donald Trump‘s inner circle, Elon Musk has increasingly flexed his political muscle, aggravating some of the president-elect’s most ardent supporters and increasing concerns over the high-profile billionaire’s growing influence.
The latest example came earlier this week after Trump sided with Musk over visas for high-tech workers, going against many in the MAGA base, including right-wing activist Laura Loomer, who wants to see the president-elect take a hard-line immigration policy with mass deportation of illegal immigrants.
Musk, who owns X, has been able to spread his message easily on the platform, underscoring the power he commands as an unelected “first buddy” of the incoming president. Earlier this month, Musk came out ahead of Trump and tanked a bipartisan funding bill in the House, which pushed the government close to a shutdown and sent lawmakers scrambling to negotiate a new bill.
“Elon comes with a double-edged sword. Incredibly powerful platform and incredibly powerful messaging tool. But at the same time, the simplicity that he portrays government and legislation — that’s just not how it works in the real world,” said Casey Burgat, the director of the legislative affairs program at George Washington University’s Graduate School of Political Management.
Some of Trump’s most vocal supporters are beginning to get annoyed with Musk’s growing influence with the president-elect. Loomer slammed Musk, calling him a “Stage 5 clinger,” on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast on Monday.
“I think that a lot of people have a hard time speaking truth to power, and a lot of people are afraid of taking on billionaires,” Loomer said. “He is the richest man in the world, and so he kind of orbits President Trump.”
“As I called him the other day, I said he’s a Stage 5 clinger,” she continued.
Bannon also had harsh words for Musk, telling him he should “sit in the back and study” or “we’re going to rip your face off.”
“Don’t come up and go to the pulpit in your first week here and start lecturing people about the way things are going to be. If you’re going to do that, we are going to rip your face off,” Bannon warned.
Musk, who Trump tapped to serve as the co-chairman of the Department of Government Efficiency, which was created to slash the size of federal operations, could also find himself at odds with GOP lawmakers if he continues to undermine negotiations. When Congress returns, it must strike a deal to fund the government after it punted this month on a full year of government funding. Lawmakers also plan to draft a border and reconciliation bill when they return.
“Musk’s overly simplistic message is going to frustrate lawmakers because they’re going to hear from constituents or they’re going to see on social media that Elon said, ‘All we have to do is this,’ so constituents are going to wonder, ‘Why aren’t you doing that?’” Burgat said.
“I think there’s going to be a gap in between that messaging and then what is actually being done on Capitol Hill, knowing that it’s not as simple as that all of the time,” he added.
The resentment is already palpable among lawmakers and their staff, with some questioning who is running the show.
“We’ve already started to see a problem where it looks like Musk is calling the shots like what we last saw … with government funding,” a GOP Senate aide said last week, speaking on the condition of anonymity in an effort to reflect candidly on the situation.
“We need [Musk] to stay out of the conversations that aren’t in his lane on social media — whether that be on immigration policy, leadership races, spending bills, the debt limit,” the person said. “This is the recipe for chaos, and I know all of us would prefer that these conversations stay between him and the administration instead of the public square. We have a Republican trifecta, and we have a huge opportunity to get our priorities accomplished, but I think we’d like to do so without social media squabbles.”
Musk has already waded into the looming race for the House speakership, first posting his agreement with Trump to support Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) on Monday. However, minutes later, the Tesla CEO acknowledged Rep. Thomas Massie’s (R-KY) concerns about Johnson’s leadership.
I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan. We’ve seen Johnson partner with the democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget. pic.twitter.com/6Y7GAkcBzJ
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) December 30, 2024
“I respect and support President Trump, but his endorsement of Mike Johnson is going to work out about as well as his endorsement of Speaker Paul Ryan,” Massie wrote. “We’ve seen Johnson partner with the democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget.”
Musk replied: “You might be right, but let’s see how it goes.”
The billionaire Tesla CEO has been using one of the cottages available for rent at Trump’s property at Mar-a-Lago, according to reporting from the New York Times, giving Musk easy access to the incoming president. In the final months of the election, Musk spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, and he has become one of his most trusted advisers, sitting in on phone calls with foreign leaders.
Musk’s close-knit relationship with the incoming president has led Democrats to suggest the billionaire is actually a “shadow president,” leading Trump to address the idea at an event earlier this month.
“He’s not going to be president, that I can tell you,” Trump said. “You know why he can’t be [president]? He wasn’t born in this country.”
The honeymoon period between Trump and Musk may be coming to an end after the president-elect has been “annoyed” with the SpaceX owner, according to reporting from Mediaite. Hogan Gidley, Trump’s former White House deputy press secretary, disputed those reports during an appearance on Fox News on Monday.
“Oh, look, it’s obvious that Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and others have good relationships with Donald Trump,” Gidley pushed back. “The media like to stir things up and try and create rifts where there aren’t any rifts.”
“Donald Trump has tasked Elon Musk with a big job, and that’s finding a lot of the fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government. We think he can absolutely accomplish that,” he added.
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Despite his involvement with the campaign and the transition, Musk does not have a formal role in the incoming administration beyond overseeing a nongovernmental agency. Whether the two will remain as close once Trump is sworn in on Jan. 20 is unclear, as the president-elect isn’t afraid to cut ties with those who undermine him.
“We’ll see how long this alliance lasts. Because if we know anything about these two folks, that they can be best friends as long as they want, but only so long as they agree with each other, then they’re all too willing to part ways,” Burgat said.
