Elon Musk and Donald Trump seem to be inseparable these days. after musk expressed his support In the run-up to the Trump presidential election in July, he donated He has donated more than $120 million to a pro-Trump super PAC he founded. He vigorously defended Trump on social media and elsewhere.
Trump reciprocated this support in his own way. At a rally in Pennsylvania, he said: said “He's amazing. He's an absolute genius,” Musk declared a few days later. He's a smart cookie. That's a little different too. He's a little weird, but he's a very smart guy. ”
As the election neared, Trump went even further. announcement Musk “proposed the creation of a Government Efficiency Commission tasked with conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government. Elon has agreed to lead that commission,” Musk said in a statement.
To some extent, this is true amidst the flood of high-profile and controversial leadership candidates. playing cards revealed Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswami will lead a new “Department of Government Efficiency” aimed at “reducing excessive regulation, eliminating wasteful spending, and restructuring federal agencies.” It is said that it will become.
Despite its name, the new agency will not be a branch of the federal government, but rather an agency that will provide what President Trump called “advice and guidance from outside the government.” Mr. Musk has claimed He could cut $2 trillion from the federal budget, but it's not yet clear how that organization will operate or what its powers will be. Rather than focusing on running major organizations in Washington, Musk is likely to want to maintain direct control of companies such as Tesla, SpaceX, XCorp, xAI and Neuralink.
Mr. Musk's influence goes beyond just making government more efficient. Shortly after the election, President Trump was invited to two official telephone conversations with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. Characteristically, Trump currently views Musk favorably and therefore wants him to be at the center of everything. Musk has been staying at the president-elect's home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, and has been giving his opinions on Cabinet nominees and other issues surrounding the transition.
But rifts have already appeared in the relationship between the president-elect and his advisers. In the Politico handbook, reported “Mr. Musk is beginning to wear out his welcome from some in Mr. Trump's orbit… Some insiders say Mr. Musk has now become an almost comical distraction. This may be a complaint of his advisers and staff rather than President Trump himself, but in any case, a more fundamental challenge lies ahead.
Mr. Musk was unsparing in his support for Mr. Trump and did not hesitate. richest man in the world You are ideologically out of sync with your new friend. He is a free market believer at heart; combined Argentina's radical liberal president, Javier Millay, predicted that “Prosperity awaits Argentina.'' Furthermore, Mr. Musk supports abolish government subsidies Introducing renewable energy to replace carbon taxes on fossil fuel users.
Mr. Musk also rejected President Trump has cherished tariffs on imports from China, which Tesla relies heavily on as a customer and manufacturing base. Mr. Musk is enjoyed a good relationship “Tesla stands ready to further deepen cooperation with China and achieve more win-win results,” he said during his last visit to Beijing in April. I told him.
Unlike Trump, Musk is not a climate change skeptic. time Trump withdrew from the usa paris agreement 2017, Mr. Musk tweeted “Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is bad for America and bad for the world.” But since President Biden rejoined the agreement, President Trump promised to retreat the second time, and a label is attached Climate change is “one of the biggest frauds in history”. he fired Climatologists are “mad people who don't know anything.”
Assuming Trump is not simply tired of Musk, how will these contradictions be resolved? Perhaps the partnership will suddenly explode as the immovable object of Mr. Trump's opinions and ego meets Mr. Musk's equally relentless personality. After all, this is what happened to Anthony Scaramucci, Rex Tillerson, Jeff Sessions, John Kelly, Jim Mattis, and many others during President Trump's first term.
But an interesting possibility is that if the two sides clash over issues in which the president has little real interest, Mr. Musk could emerge victorious. Mr. Trump is not a deep thinker, relying on basic instincts and prejudices. Beyond the summer There were signs As the partnership with Mr. Musk, CEO of the world's largest EV maker, progresses, he said his hostility toward electric vehicles is easing.
Predicting Trump's actions is a fool's errand. What is certain is that the current equilibrium with Mr. Musk will not last long. Mr. Musk's skills (he is innovative, energetic, and iconoclastic, but impulsive and inconsistent) could be harnessed by a transformative government. A safer option would be to part ways, bitter and nasty. However, remember that the results are unprecedented until they happen.
Elliott Wilson is a freelance writer on politics and international issues and co-founder of Pivot Point Group. He was a senior member of the UK House of Commons from 2005 to 2016, including Secretary of the Defense Committee and Secretary of the UK Delegation to NATO Parliament.
