The incoming president, however, has lavished praise on the entrepreneur
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk is overstaying his welcome at US President-elect Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate and “behaving as if he’s a co-president,” sources close to Trump have leaked to NBC News. Trump’s team has denied that there is any tension between the pair.
Musk joined Trump at Mar-a-Lago on election night and has spent much of the last week at the Florida resort assisting the transition team. The tech tycoon has weighed in on Trump’s cabinet appointments, and was present when Trump held phone calls with Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, reportedly speaking directly to Zelensky at one point.
Musk’s closeness to Trump has apparently irritated some of the president-elect’s transition staff. “He’s behaving as if he’s a co-president and making sure everyone knows it,” a source at Mar-a-Lago told NBC News on Wednesday.
“And he’s sure taking lots of credit for the president’s victory. Bragging about America PAC and X to anyone who will listen. He’s trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him. And the president is indebted to no one,” the source added.
A second source said that Musk has an “opinion on and about everything” and that his insistence on sharing these opinions has started to annoy Trump’s most senior aides and advisers. “He wants to be seen as having a say in everything (even if he doesn’t),” the source said, adding that Musk’s aggressive lobbying may hurt his standing with the president-elect in the long run.
Over the last week, multiple sources close to Trump have fed a steady stream of transition-related gossip to the media. It is unclear how accurate this gossip is, particularly in the case of Musk, who Trump speaks glowingly about.
"Elon Musk is a great guy, loaded with personality and ‘brainpower’,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Wednesday. “He is definitely a high IQ person, which is the reason that his really strong endorsement meant so much to me, and to MAGA. He’s at a beautiful Mar-a-Lago concert right now, and the crowd absolutely loves him,” Trump continued, adding that Musk’s contribution to his win “will never be forgotten.”
“Elon Musk and President Trump are great friends and brilliant leaders working together to Make America Great Again. Elon Musk is a once in a generation business leader and our federal bureaucracy will certainly benefit from his ideas and efficiency,” a spokesperson for Trump told NBC.
At a meeting with House Republicans on Wednesday morning, Trump joked that “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him.” However, Trump went on to praise Musk for dedicating so much time and money to his campaign, and Republican lawmakers told NBC that his statement on how Musk “won’t go home” was made in jest.
On Tuesday, Trump nominated Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). Although not an actual federal agency, DOGE will “provide advice and guidance” to the White House and Office of Management and Budget on how to eliminate regulations, slash government spending, and restructure other agencies, Trump said in a statement.
