Tesla CEO, who was Trump’s most influential campaign supporter, has transformed into a key power in the presidential transition.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk has become more immersed in the world of politics since Donald Trump’s election, bonding with the president-elect and offering him advice on key administration figures, according to US media reports.
Musk, who donated $119 million to a pro-Trump political action committee and campaigned aggressively for the Republican Party, has visited Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida almost every day since election day Tuesday and spent time with the president-elect. His family reported on CNN.
Donald Trump’s granddaughter Kai Trump posted a photo of herself with Musk and his children on social media, joking that the billionaire was ‘getting uncle status’.
Elon gains uncle status 😂 pic.twitter.com/vufSffziZN
— Kai Trump (@KaiTrumpGolfs) November 10, 2024
According to CNN, Musk is using his X social media platform to promote his political vision while making his voice heard in important personnel deliberations.
“He definitely inserts himself all the time. That’s his style.” technology journalist Kara Swisher told CNN. “I’ve had Trump people call me and say, ‘Oh, wow.’ ‘It’s strange.’ And it is.”
Over the weekend and Monday, Musk posted his support for Florida Sen. Rick Scott to lead the Senate and invited the public to suggest candidates for Trump’s Cabinet.
The billionaire also shared a post from former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, whose name has been floated as a possible candidate for executive branch office, advocating a “radical downsizing” of government.
“The obstacle is to overcome the Kafkaesque nature of the rules that govern this massive bureaucracy and to ensure that fanatically committed small-government revolutionaries join this administration!” Musk wrote in one post in response to Ramaswamy’s suggestion.
The real obstacle is to overcome the Kafkaesque nature of the rules governing this massive bureaucracy and to ensure that fanatically committed small government revolutionaries join this administration! https://t.co/ObfnIeuTXa
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2024
Musk’s approach to President Trump at Mar-a-Lago, reported by CNN, effectively became the centerpiece of Trump’s inauguration, analysts said.
His electric car company, Tesla, has already seen gains, with its shares soaring 14% the day after Trump’s election and the threat of tariffs on Chinese imports keeping rivals in China at bay.
“We saw lobbying activity. We’ve seen super PACs (political action committees), but this is on a scale we’ve never seen before,” Gita Johar, a professor at Columbia Business School, told The Guardian. “There will be a cost from which he (Musk) can benefit.”
President Trump has previously mentioned nominating Musk as “cost-cutting secretary,” but he is unlikely to take on a position that would require Senate confirmation or interfere with his business, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fisher reported.
Instead, Musk could serve on a “blue-ribbon committee that would still have enormous access but would not be subject to government ethics rules,” CNN said.
Musk’s close relationship with the president-elect means he is likely to push for deregulation, which he has repeatedly blamed for slowing innovation at his companies, including SpaceX and Tesla.
On the day Trump was elected, Musk wrote in X, “America is a nation of builders.” “Soon we will be able to build freely.”
