The richest man in the world Elon Musk is omnipresent alongside President-elect Donald Trump, a romance between two billionaires with strong personalities that began recently.
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A brilliant entrepreneur, extremely wealthy and megalomaniac, born in South Africa, naturalized American, the boss of Tesla, Space X and appointing him on Tuesday as advisor in charge of “governmental efficiency”.
Objective: “Dismantle the federal government bureaucracy”.
Since we saw this 53-year-old multi-billionaire – worth $300 billion according to Forbes – jumping for joy on the stage of a Donald Trump campaign rally in October, Elon Musk has been participating in meetings these days, meals and phone calls from the president-elect, giving his opinion and dispensing advice on government appointments and policy.
The New York Times reports on Wednesday, thanks to the confidences of Republicans and those close to Mr. Musk, that the latter is spending the week at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida stronghold of Donald Trump, from where he has prepared for four years his return to the White House.
On his own X network, where he posts messages, images and “memes” of himself, often with his four-year-old son Lil buddy” of the next president of the United States.
“Elon, so good”
Having swapped his sweatshirt and cap for a strict black suit, the businessman was on Wednesday in the front row of a meeting in Washington of Republican parliamentarians with Donald Trump, who gave him “Elon, you were so good “.
The Republicans, the majority in the Senate and the House of Representatives, cheered him standing according to images on social networks.
By appointing Elon Musk and another Republican billionaire, Vivek Ramaswamy, to head a special commission for “government efficiency,” Donald Trump urged them to “clean up the waste and mass fraud in public spending.”
These “two great Americans (…) will work together to free our economy and make the United States government accountable to “WE THE PEOPLE”,” the populist tribune pledged, giving them until “July 4 2026” for the “250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.”
If these three wealthy businessmen get along in the long term – which experts doubt given their strong personalities – they could make clear cuts of 2,000 billion dollars in the state budget from 6,500 to 7,000 billion.
Donald Trump said he wanted to “send shock waves through the system” and compared this Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to the “Manhattan Project of our time”, named after the American research and development program during the Second World War which created the atomic bomb.
“Great friends”
Asked by the New York Times, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, Karoline Leavitt, summed up the personal relationship between the president-elect and the richest man in the world: “Great friends and brilliant leaders working together to make his greatness to America.
The relationships even seem familial.
The day after the presidential election, the president-elect’s youngest daughter, Tiffany Trump, posted on X a family photo at Mar-a-Lago, captioned “Dad, we are so proud of you!”, with children, grandchildren children Trump and Elon Musk carrying his young son in his arms.
One of the Trump grandchildren, Kai Trump, photographed Mr. Musk on the Mar-a-Lago golf course, calling him “Uncle Elon.”
However, the two billionaires did not know each other a few months ago and had seemingly polar opposite positions.
Elon Musk and his Tesla electric cars embody a form of ecological progressivism opposed to the climate-skeptical conservatism of the Trumpists.
And the innovative boss was formerly a Democrat and had voted for Joe Biden, before getting angry with the outgoing president and turning around for Donald Trump.
The soon-to-be 47th President of the United States is also known to have little taste for being overshadowed: his former eminence grise Steve Bannon, a far-right ideologue, was dismissed during his first term after being on the cover. by Time as “the second most powerful man in the world.” However, the two men have since seemed to have mended their ways.
