Lower than per week after the election outcomes have been known as for former president Donald Trump, his centibillionaire backer Elon Musk is already doing what he promised: taking an energetic function in shaping the federal government beneath a second Trump administration.
Through the marketing campaign, Musk emerged as considered one of Trump’s largest backers and his most zealous advocate in Silicon Valley. His political motion committee (PAC), of which he was the first funder, spent $200 million to assist the Trump marketing campaign. However he additionally hit the marketing campaign path drumming up assist within the vital battleground state of Pennsylvania; made an look with Trump at a rally; stumped for Trump on Joe Rogan’s common podcast; hosted a reside on X, which he owns; and used his platform and the facility of his personal movie star to push the marketing campaign’s speaking factors and increase propaganda claiming Democrats would enable unauthorized immigrants to vote.
In his first administration, Trump famously made governing a household enterprise, bringing his daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner into outstanding positions. Musk, in line with Trump’s granddaughter Kai, has now apparently reached “uncle” standing, showing in a household photograph (and apparently refusing to go away). It does seem that Musk can be closely concerned in no matter comes subsequent. And his posts on X, in addition to his early post-elections interactions with Trump, clarify what that may seem like.
Musk, who has apparently already joined Trump’s calls with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, Serbia president Aleksandar Vučić, and Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, seems to be poised to have some type of function within the administration. In September, Trump stated he would create a authorities effectivity fee with Musk—whose enterprise empire advantages extensively from authorities contracts and subsidies—on the helm. On Sunday, Musk reshared a submit envisioning a Trump administration that focuses on “deregulation (defanging the SEC, FTC, and others), authorities spending cuts (making room for the non-public sector), tax cuts, and a concentrate on technologically enabled innovation,” with the remark, “Nice.” Musk additionally known as for “making certain that maniacally devoted small-government revolutionaries be part of this administration!”
And already, Musk is starting to weigh in on staffing selections for the second Trump administration and past. On Sunday morning, Musk launched a ballot asking customers who needs to be the brand new Senate Majority Chief, in line to succeed outgoing minority chief, Kentucky senator Mitch McConnell. Customers appeared to overwhelmingly vote for MAGA favourite Florida senator Rick Scott. When Trump introduced that New York congresswoman Elise Stefanik could be his choose for UN Ambassador, Musk took to X to weigh in, saying, “Elise is superior, but it surely may be too dicey to lose her from the Home, a minimum of for now.” Reporting from the Monetary Occasions revealed that Musk is trying to set up his personal loyalists and backers into the federal government, significantly folks like Steve Davis, CEO of the Musk-founded Boring Firm, and has reportedly requested Trump to nominate SpaceX employees to the Division of Protection.
In one other submit together with a video of Nationwide Public Radio CEO Katherine Maher from a TED Speak she gave in 2021, three years earlier than she took over the group, Musk asks, “Ought to your tax {dollars} actually be paying for a company run by individuals who assume the reality is a ‘distraction’?” In a submit shared over the weekend, Musk described the Division of Schooling as “not precisely nice worth for cash.” (Mission 2025, a roadmap created by the Heritage Basis for a second Trump administration, requires eliminating the Division of Schooling). In all, Musk has advocated for $2 trillion in spending cuts—greater than the federal authorities’s complete spending in fiscal yr 2023 on all discretionary outlays together with protection, in accordance to the Congressional Price range Workplace.
