This is an adapted excerpt from the Nov. 13 episode of “All In with Chris Hayes.”
You know the old adage, “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days”? Well, it’s been a week since Donald Trump was elected as our next president and there are numerous reports that one notable guest at Mar-a-Lago is wearing out his welcome: The world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
Musk has become “America’s most powerful private citizen,” according to The New York Times.
Musk used his social media platform and his vast personal wealth to help get Trump elected. In return, the president-elect announced Wednesday that he was putting Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy in charge of a still-theoretical Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, to slash government spending.
Musk has become “America’s most powerful private citizen,” according to The New York Times. He’s reportedly sitting in on job interviews with the Trump team and pushing for his Silicon Valley friends to get plum positions in the White House.
The Times even reports:
At Mar-a-Lago one recent evening, he walked into the dining room about 30 minutes after the president-elect did and received a similar standing ovation, according to two people who saw him enter.
Well, if there’s one thing we know about Trump, it’s that he doesn't love sharing the spotlight.
It seems clear Musk has bottomless ambitions. The South African-born tech billionaire is barred from running for high office by the Constitution because he’s not a native-born U.S. citizen. So this is as close as he is going to get and he seems to be making the most of it.
We’ve joked darkly about Musk setting himself up as a sort of co-president but it’s not just us. Two people familiar with the transition now tell NBC News that Musk may be overstaying his welcome in Trump world.
“He’s behaving as if he’s a co-president and making sure everyone knows it,” one of those people said.
More insiders told Politico’s Playbook: “Musk has become almost a comical distraction, hanging around Mar-a-Lago, sidling into high-level transition meetings and giving unsolicited feedback on Trump’s personnel decisions.” As one of them said, “Elon is getting a little big for his britches.”
“Elon won’t go home,” Trump said. “I can’t get rid of him. Until I don’t like him.”
Now, this may just be backbiting insiders who are envious of Musk’s close relationship with the future president, but it tells me that even some people close to Trump, who helped him win over working-class voters, aren’t crazy about the world’s richest man issuing orders to a democratic nation.
What will Americans think? Or, more to their point, what will Trump think? How many “Scaramuccis” do we think the president-elect will let pass before his ego can no longer tolerate the adoration and authority of his co-president?
To that point, before Trump’s trip to the White House on Wednesday, he made a stop to meet with House Republican leaders, with Musk in tow. After the cameras went off, Trump told the lawmakers a joke about Musk, NBC reported, citing two lawmakers who were in the room at the time.
“Elon won’t go home,” the president-elect said. “I can’t get rid of him. Until I don’t like him.”
The good news is, Trump is likely to get sick of Musk. The bad news is, until that moment comes, our unprecedented experiment in handing over the levers of power to unelected billionaires continues.
Allison Detzel contributed.