(AFP) – Donald Trump has mocked what he said were media depictions of Elon Musk as the real power in the White House, saying attempts to drive a wedge between himself and the tech billionaire have failed. “They do it all the time,” the US president says in excerpts posted Saturday from a Fox News interview to be aired Tuesday.
Speaking as if in a news anchor’s voice, Trump went on, “We have breaking news: Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting tonight…” The Republican president is famously prickly about being outshone by anyone in his entourage, and there has been widespread speculation that Musk’s high profile could lead to his downfall.
The South African-born Musk, while nominally just the head of a new “Department of Government Efficiency” (DOGE), has taken on extraordinarily broad powers in identifying what he says are areas of waste and then moving quickly to cut jobs and spending. Those moves by the world’s wealthiest person have drawn jibes in the press, including a Time magazine cover showing Musk sitting behind the president’s iconic Resolute Desk, and a New Yorker cover showing both Trump and Musk, hands on a Bible, together taking the presidential oath of office.
Trump so far has been publicly supportive of Musk’s work, which the president says is vitally important at a time of soaring budget deficits. In the Fox interview, Trump said he and Musk had discussed the media mockery. “Actually, Elon called me,” the president said. “He said, ‘You know, they’re trying to drive us apart.’ I said, ‘Absolutely.'” Trump added that Americans understood what the media allegedly were up to.
“I used to think they were good at it,” Trump said. “They’re actually bad at it, because if they were good at it, I’d never be president.” “The people are smart,” he went on. “They get it.” Amid all the criticism, Musk has continued to draw an intense media focus, including in an Oval Office appearance in which a casually dressed Musk brought his four-year-old son and spoke at greater length than the president.
Democrats have seized on the at times awkward dynamic, and opinion polls show negative views of the Tesla and SpaceX boss clearly outpacing positive ones. But Trump, meantime, is enjoying some of his highest approval ratings ever.
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