3 weeks ago
1
Most of Donald Trump’s aides and officials are happy to see the back of tech billionaire Elon Musk, according to The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman.
Musk, the world’s richest person, left his controversial role as a special government employee last week. He’d been tasked with slashing public spending and gutting federal jobs in his role leading the president’s unofficial, so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
Haberman, a longtime reporter on Trump, talked on CNN about how Musk had become “a source of consternation” for Trump’s circle.
He “would make statements about fraud and waste that he was finding in the Social Security network, that there were examples of tons of people who were dead, receiving benefits, but then he would not produce that information,” she explained.
“Those headlines were problematic for Trump, politically, in their minds,” Haberman added, saying they “are happy to have him go.”
“There are things he did that some of them are happy with,” she acknowledged. “A bunch of them in Trump’s world came around to Musk.”
“Many others, however, were not so happy,” she said. “Mostly, he was a source of tension, and he commanded this social media presence where he could intimidate any of them as well. And so I think, you know, they are happy to see this chapter end.”
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