Dressed tech-style, in a black “Make America Great Again” baseball cap and black t-shirt, as if becoming the world’s richest man were no big deal, Donald Trump’s largest campaign contributor sat in on the US president’s first Cabinet meeting, joining department secretaries and top-brass military officers.
Elon Musk, who runs Trump’s unofficial DOGE (the so-called “department” of government efficiency), and has been targeted by Capitol Hill Democrats and Republicans alike for firing more than a hundred thousand of their federally employed constituents, has been the subject of protests and lawsuits around the country for his allegedly illegal layoffs and seemingly unconstitutional meddling in government affairs.
This didn’t stop Musk from asserting himself in Wednesday’s cabinet meeting, where the likes of Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, right down to Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy (Hegseth’s former colleague at Fox News) and Energy Secretary Chris Wright were all dressed in suits and ties to show respect to the office.
According to a CNN scorecard: “Trump spoke for the vast majority of his meeting. But Musk spoke three times as long as anyone else. It wasn’t until 56 minutes into the meeting that Trump invited Vice President JD Vance to speak, and he only offered 36 seconds of remarks. The housing secretary was invited to speak — but only to offer an opening prayer.”
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Acknowledging the backlash from the American public and federal judicial system, Trump asked his cabinet at the meeting, looking around the table, “Is anybody unhappy with Elon?”
There was no response from those seated at their gold-plaqued chairs as Musk eyed them from a seat provided for him, behind the Senate-confirmed officials.
The unelected and unconfirmed adviser, who brought his four-year-old son, named “X Æ A-Xii ,” to a press conference in the Oval Office last month (Trump reportedly replaced the 145-year-old desk after the toddler wiped his nose mucus on it) chose a t-shirt reading “Tech Support” for the cabinet meeting.
The owner of Space X, Tesla, and the social media platform named similarly to his toddler son (one of his 13 kids from various women at last count) Musk contributed in the neighborhood of $280 million to Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, and also pledged, during the presidential race in October, to give away $1 million a day to voters for signing his political action committee’s petition.
One of Musk’s comments during the meeting was: “What we are trying to get to the bottom of is we think there are a number of people on the government payroll who are dead, which is probably why they can’t respond.” Several former employees of the US Social Security system have gone public to say that Trump’s exaggerated claims of 100-plus-year-olds receiving checks are baseless.
While most Cabinet members remained quiet on Musk’s mass firings, several Republican House members pushed back against the effort on Wednesday.
For his part at the meeting, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said, “I obviously fully support DOGE. In fact, I turned in the five things I’d done this last week,” referring to Musk’s team’s requirement that each federal employee document “five things” that they had accomplished the week before.
Trump summarized his Cabinet members’ opinion: “They have a lot of respect for Elon and that he’s doing this… And some disagree a little bit. But I will tell you for the most part, I think everyone’s not only happy, they’re thrilled.”
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