For two weeks, Donald Trump has welcomed Elon Musk into his world. On Tuesday, it was Musk’s turn to host the president-elect.
Trump flew to South Texas to watch Musk’s SpaceX launch a Starship rocket near the Mexican border. Trump listened intently as the world’s richest man explained how the test would work and demonstrated with a model. And then Trump looked up into the bright sky to see liftoff.
It didn’t quite go well — the reusable booster didn’t return to the launchpad like it did in a previous test last month. Instead, the booster was directed to splash down in the Gulf of Mexico.
But Trump’s presence at the launch was a remarkable display of closeness between the two men, one that has implications for American politics, government, foreign policy and even the prospect of humans reaching Mars.
Musk spent nearly $200 million to help Trump defeat Democrat Kamala Harris in the presidential race, giving him unprecedented access. He advised Trump on nominees for the new administration, joined the president-elect on a phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and co-chaired an advisory panel to reduce the size of the federal bureaucracy. Tapped.
In addition to political influence, Musk could also benefit personally. His rocket company SpaceX has billions of dollars in government contracts and aims to eventually start a colony on Mars. He is also the CEO of Tesla, which makes electric vehicles, and has battled with regulators over safety concerns about autonomous driving.
“Trump has the greatest respect possible for people who break the rules and get away with it,” said William Gelston, a senior fellow in governance studies at the Brookings Institution, a Washington-based think tank. “Musk has shown extraordinary success in doing this.”
On top of that, Musk owns social media company X, formally known as Twitter, which he has used as an influential perch to promote Trump and his agenda.
“Stop the swamp!” He wrote on Tuesday as he shared a warning that Washington interests are trying to undermine Trump ahead of his inauguration.
Before the election, Musk dismissed the idea that he was expecting any favors in return for supporting Trump in the presidential race.
“There is no care,” He posted on X. “With the Trump administration, we can implement major government reforms, eliminate the bureaucratic red tape that is crippling the country and usher in a new era of prosperity,” he said in September.
However, Trump hasn’t gone anywhere without Musk in the two weeks since killing Harris. Musk joined Trump at a meeting with House Republicans in Washington and sat next to him at the Ultimate Fighting Championship match in New York. The trip to Texas for the rocket launch was Trump’s third trip outside of Florida since the election.
Most of Trump’s activities are taking place with little public access to the press. Unlike his predecessors, he has opted against making his travel plans or events regular for journalists.
The relationship between Trump and Musk was not always so close.
Two years ago, Trump was mocking Musk in stump speeches with Musk saying it was time for Trump to “hang up his hat and ride off into the sunset.”
“Trump will be 82 at the end of the term, too old to be the chief executive of anything, let alone the United States of America,” Musk wrote on social media. .
But Musk quickly backed Trump after the former president survived an assassination attempt in July. He quickly became a central figure in Trump’s orbit, at times seeming more like his running mate than Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Trump began bragging about Musk’s exploits at campaign rallies, such as when Starship’s reusable rocket booster returned to the launch tower on a previous occasion and was seized by mechanical weapons.
“Those arms hold him like you hold your baby, like you hold your little baby. And he hugged him and put him down, and it was there,” Trump said.
Musk was with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort on election night and has been away for the better part of two weeks. Trump’s granddaughter Kai Trump posted a photo of herself with Musk at Trump’s golf resort, writing that Musk is “getting uncle status.”
Last week, Musk appeared in a gilded ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, sitting in the center of the room as the guest of honor at an event. In his remarks at the black-tie event, Trump said Musk’s IQ was “as high as you can get” and praised him as “a really good guy.”
“He launched a rocket three weeks ago and then he went to Pennsylvania to campaign because he thought it was more important than launching a rocket that costs billions of dollars,” Trump said.
He mocked Musk’s continued presence at Mar-a-Lago, saying, “He loves this place. I can’t get him out of here.”
He added, “And you know, I love having it here.”
Musk said of the election results: “The people have given us a mandate that couldn’t be clearer.”
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Price reported from New York.
