Former President Donald Trump’s relationship with Elon Musk – one of the world’s richest men – has apparently been growing closer over the past year. This Thursday, Trump even said that Musk might be in his cabinet if he wins the November election.
Trump made the comment during a speech at the Economic Club of New York. He geared up by telling the audience that he planned to make America “the world capital for crypto and Bitcoin.”
Business Insider noted in an article published last April that Musk – whose titles include CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, owner of X (formerly Twitter) and more – has had a “long love affair with cryptocurrency.” In particular, he’s known for his support of the meme currency Dogecoin.
Trump has also forayed into the world of digital currency with non-fungible tokens (NFTs). He’s also recently launched a new venture to trade cryptocurrencies called World Liberty Financial, according to the Associated Press.
After his comments about crypto, Trump revealed that: “At the suggestion of Elon Musk, who has given me his complete and total endorsement,” he plans to create a government efficiency commission. This commission would be tasked with “conducting a complete financial and performance audit of the entire federal government and making recommendations for drastic reforms,” Trump added.
Musk and Trump have not always been on good terms. In fact, the Wall Street Journal has even referred to their previous rapport as “frosty” and Musk was previously known for his support of Democratic candidates. However, that has recently started to turn around, particularly as Trump began campaigning for the 2024 election.
Rumors that Musk might have a role in a future Trump administration have been circulating since May, when Audacy covered a Wall Street Journal report that revealed Elon Musk might have a role in former President Donald Trump’s administration if the presumptive GOP candidate wins in November.
According to that report, Trump and Musk were already speaking several times a month at that point. During some of those discussions, the possibility of Musk serving in an advisory role came up.
In July, Audacy covered a Bloomberg report that said Musk “contributed to a low-profile group called America PAC, according to people familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity to detail his plans,” and that the group was working to get Trump elected. Later that month, Musk confirmed that he donated to the America PAC, but refuted that he contributed $45 million per month.
Just this month, the United Auto Workers union announced that would file federal labor charges against both Trump and Musk for their “illegal attempts to threaten and intimidate workers” who go on strike. Around the same time, the two got together for a livestreamed interview on X.
Similarly to an earlier X event featuring then-GOP candidate and current Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, the Musk-Trump talk was hindered by technical difficulties. Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign was quick to criticize it.
“Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024,” the campaign wrote in a statement.
Later in August, Trump again hinted that Musk would be getting a cabinet position if he is reelected. As of Friday, The Hill’s Decision Desk HQ said that Harris had a 55% chance of winning and FiveThirtyEight’s aggregate of polling data showed that she was leading the polls at 47.3% to Trump’s 44.2%. However, we still have more than a month to go before the election, and this campaign season has already had many twists and turns.
During his Thursday speech, Trump said the government efficiency commission’s first goal would be to develop an action plan to “totally eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months.” He claimed this plan would save trillions of dollars for taxpayers.
“And Elon, because he’s not very busy, has agreed to head that task force… [it would] be interesting,” he said of the South African entrepreneur. “If he has the time, he’d be a good one to do it. But he’s agreed to do it.”