Elon Musk, the president’s ‘First Buddy’

“I can’t get him out of here.” Donald Trump joked on Thursday at an event at his Mar-a-Lago mansion in Palm Beach, Florida. The wealthiest man in the world has become the president-elect’s shadow: Elon Musk at a rally with Trump; Elon Musk, at another rally in the company of Melania Trump; Elon Musk at the party celebrating the election victory; Elon Musk, on the phone during the president-elect’s first call with Volodymyr Zelenskiy; Elon Musk singing with the tenor Chris Macchio; Elon Musk with Trump on the plane to Washington to meet with Joe Biden at the White House; Elon Musk, at the meeting of the Republican caucus of the House of Representatives; Elon Musk, meeting with Iranian diplomats; Elon Musk, with Javier Milei and Trump himself at Mar-a-Lago. Elon Musk… everywhere.

“I’m happy to be first buddy!” Musk tweeted when he was informally awarded that title, and the term caught on. “Elon achieving uncle status,” joked Kai Trump, the president-elect’s granddaughter. The billionaire posed with his son X for Trump’s family photo celebrating the election victory. “Elon, we have to have a picture with your boy. We have to get Elon with his boy. That gorgeous, perfect boy,” Trump can be heard saying in the videos that captured the moment.

With his fortune of over $300 billion, his ownership of the X social network, his closeness and influence over the president-elect, and his mission to eliminate federal regulations and agencies, the head of Tesla, SpaceX, xAI and X has undoubtedly become the most powerful private citizen in the United States.

Musk has spent most of his time at Mar-a-Lago since the election. His private jet landed at nearby West Palm Beach Airport on Nov. 5 and was there for about 24 hours, according to the @ElonJet account on Bluesky, which uses publicly available flight data. The jet took off from West Palm Beach on Wednesday and headed to Austin, Texas, where Musk has a home, but returned on Friday and stayed there until Wednesday. That day, the tycoon flew to Washington on Trump’s plane, although his own aircraft followed, returning to Florida in the afternoon. In Washington, at the meeting with lawmakers, the Republican also joked about the fact that the businessman has become his shadow: “Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him.”

The president-elect praised Musk at that meeting, where the entrepreneur received a standing ovation from members of Congress, some of whom took photos with him. In his appearances in the dining room of the Mar-a-Lago club, Musk has been greeted with similar jubilation.

During these past few days when he has barely moved from Trump’s side, Musk has been offering his opinion on everything: on policies to be followed, on Cabinet appointments, on foreign relations... to the point that some American media outlets have pointed out that his role has been more active than that of the formal heads of the transition process, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon. His prominence has aroused some misgivings — or perhaps outright jealousy — among other, more traditional Trump allies.

Musk himself takes part of the credit for the Republican’s victory on election day, when he defeated Democrat Kamala Harris in the seven battleground states and also won the popular vote by a difference of between two and three million votes (just under two points). He personally contributed around $200 million to the Trump campaign through his organization America PAC, held solo rallies in Pennsylvania and continually shared Trumpist propaganda on his social network, where not only does he have 205 million followers, but also encourages the dissemination of his messages and those of his organization with the X algorithm, and has given a voice to ultraconservative activists.

Musk has been one of the unexpected protagonists of the presidential campaign. It was already known in May that Trump was counting on him for his team if the latter won the elections. Later, the candidate himself confirmed that, if elected, he would ask Musk to carry out a “drastic” reform of the administration. At Tesla’s shareholders’ meeting in June, Musk spoke of his relationship with the Republican, and of how Trump sometimes calls him. “He does call me out of the blue for no reason. I don’t know why, but he does,” he said.

Musk is perceived as so powerful that some of the brands that stopped advertising on his social network due to the rise of hate speech are returning to the fold, in an apparent attempt to ingratiate themselves with its owner. “I just want to say that we really appreciate the big brands advertising on our platform again,” Musk tweeted, commenting on a report that said IBM, Disney, Comcast, Discovery, Warner Bros and Lionsgate had resumed advertising after a long drought.

Musk had already named the position he wanted to fill. “We need the Department of Government Efficiency,” he said at a rally in Pennsylvania in October, highlighting its acronym, DOGE, a nod to Dogecoin, the bitcoin-derived cryptocurrency that uses a dog as a mascot and which he sponsors. “DOGE on a brass plaque. It’s going to be amazing,” he added.

Trump announced this week that DOGE will be headed not only by Elon Musk, but also by former Republican primary candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, who did not survive the first round in that contest. “Together, these two wonderful Americans will pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies,” Trump said, announcing the appointment.

In reality, DOGE is not an actual government department, and it will not be one. For now, it is little more than a theoretical construct. It is not entirely clear how it will work or under what legal cover. Trump only indicated that it will “partner” with the White House and the Office of Management and Budget. Neither Musk nor Ramaswamy will have to be confirmed by the Senate, since they will not hold any official position. This frees them from any liability, but does not eliminate conflicts of interest.

The goal of avoiding excessive regulation and cutting the power of government agencies may benefit the billionaire at Tesla for the development of its autonomous cars (where he has had clashes with current authorities), at SpaceX for the launch of its rockets, at xAI for the development of artificial intelligence and at Neuralink for clinical trials of computer implants in the brain.

Drastic cuts

Musk has been recruiting volunteers to help him with the massive task of scrutinizing every budget item in the government. He has even said that two of the $6.7 trillion in federal spending could be cut, but without explaining how. Most of that is interest on the debt (which can’t be cut), military spending (which Trump has said he wants to increase), and entitlements (like Social Security and health care, which the president-elect pledged to uphold). He will undoubtedly find some waste here and there, but cutting spending by nearly a third is much easier said than done.

Those who join Musk and Ramaswamy will have tedious, unpaid work, they themselves have acknowledged. Still, they have asked for candidates. “We are very grateful to the thousands of Americans who have expressed interest in helping us at DOGE. We don’t need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting. If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants,” the DOGE account tweeted.

The task entrusted to the two billionaires has a deadline: July 4, 2026, the day of the 250th anniversary of the independence of the United States. It remains to be seen whether the honeymoon between the future president and the richest man in the world will still be holding together, or whether two roosters in the same coop will end up fighting.

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