Elon Musk has really inserted himself into President-elect Donald Trump’s life, including staying in a cottage on his Mar-a-Lago estate that goes for $2,000 a night.
The cottage, named Banyan, is only a few hundred feet away from the main house, the New York Times reported Monday. The proximity gives him access to any influential dinners the president-elect may host.
Mr. Musk, owner of X, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the world’s richest man, has been staying at the cottage since around Election Day. He left around Christmas, but will be back in the new year.
He has had guests, including some of his 11 children, their nannies and their mothers. Reportedly, he makes requests like meals outside of normal eating hours.
In a Truth Social post Friday that seemed like it should’ve been a private text, Mr. Trump asked where Mr. Musk where he has been.
“Where are you? When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe,’ Mar-a-Lago. Bill Gates asked to come, tonight. We miss you and x! New Year’s Eve is going to be AMAZING!!! DJT.”
Mr. Musk played a big role in Mr. Trump’s presidential campaign, donating money and making speeches on his behalf. He was recently tapped to head the newly-created Department of Government Efficiency with Vivek Ramaswamy.
Democrats have started saying that Mr. Musk is the one calling the shots over Mr. Trump, a claim that prompted push back from the president-elect.
“All the different hoaxes and the new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk,” Mr. Trump said at the Turning Point Action Conference in Phoenix, Arizona earlier this month. “No, no, that’s not happening but Elon’s done an amazing job.”
He said that Mr. Musk is “not going to be president, that I can tell you.
“And I’m safe. You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Musk was born in South Africa and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2002, though the former makes him constitutionally ineligible to be president or vice president.
There have also been gripes about Mr. Musk’s influence by some members of the Trump camp and other Trump allies.
Mr. Musk has recently angered Trump allies over his comments regarding H1-B visas, when he argued that high-tech companies like his need to import workers to function.
Mr. Musk argued that America needs to double the number of engineers and that the number of “super talented” and “super motivated” engineers in the U.S. was “far too low.” He compared the H-1B visa program to a sports team bringing in new talent “to keep winning.”
“If you want your TEAM to win the championship, you need to recruit top talent wherever they may be. That enables the whole TEAM to win,” Mr. Musk said on social media. He also called those against the visas “contemptible fools.”
Conservative commentator Laura Loomer raged against Mr. Musk’s comments, saying that while she has “been more loyal to President Trump and his agend,” she has “only been punished for it.”
“Pay attention MAGA. This is how you will all be treated now that Big Tech has infiltrated MAGA. ’President Musk’ is starting to look real,” Ms. Loomer said on X.
DOGE is a department created by Mr. Trump to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure Federal Agencies.”
In a statement announcing the department, Mr. Trump said it will “provide advice and guidance from outside of Government and will partner with the White House and Office of Management & Budget to drive large-scale structural reform and create an entrepreneurial approach to Government never seen before.”
