What happened to Elon Musk? Tech boss drifts on the edges of Trump World | Elon Muschus

TThe Oval Office was overcrowded and reporter warned not to collide with the determined desk. The billionaire of Donald Trump and head of his government stood efficiency in black dressed Elon Musk.

“Elon comes from South Africa – I don't want to include Elon,” said the US President of his South African counterpart Cyril Ramaphosa during a discussion about crimes against white farmers. “He actually came here on another topic: send rockets to Mars. He likes it better.”

Musk's silence during the hour -long meeting was a small but meaningful memory of his shift in Trump's orbit. He remains close to the president and welcome to the west wing. He also made a second visit to the Pentagon this week. But a relationship that would end many forecasts in an explosive collision of ego seems to be an unstoppable rejuvenation instead.

On Monday, the Politico website published an analysis under the heading “Why did Elon Musk disappear from the spotlight?” There was a strong decline in the number of times that Trump published on his social platform of truth about Musk, from an average of four times a week in February and March to zero since the beginning of April.

In February, according to Politico, Trump's donation campaigns called almost every day in Fundraising -e emails with a message: “I love Elon Musk! The media want to take us apart and it doesn't work. He is great.” However, such mentions were abruptly stopped at the beginning of March, with the exception of an e -mail in May, which applied for a “Gulf of America” ​​that Musk had worn.

In addition, officials from the White House no longer fill their social media feeds with muscle-related content. Reporters rarely ask for him at the White House press conference. Members of the congress give its name a wide berth.

Muschus seems to take the hint. This week, the CEO of Tesla confirmed that he had reduced his role as an unofficial head of the so-called “Department of Government Efficiency” (Doge) to just two days a week, and will also be significantly reduced to the latest public signal that he will shift his attention back to his business empire.

It is a dramatic postponement of the first few weeks of Trump's second term, when Musk participated in the inauguration, a constant presence in Mar-A-Lago was published in addition to Trump in the Oval Office and gave a joint interview about Fox news full of mutual admiration. Doge dominated the headlines of the media when it brought a chainsaw for the German bureaucracy.

It seemed that Trump was blinded by the richest person in the world, sending the rockets into space and last year spent at least $ 250 million for his election campaign. In March, the President even transformed the lawn of the White House into a temporary Tesla showroom, which exhibited and promised five of the electric vehicles to buy one himself.

But the surveys told their own history. Last month, a national survey by Marquette University Law School revealed the approval of how Muschus deals with 41% with a disapproval of 58%. About 60% of the respondents themselves had an unfavorable view of musk compared to 38% that were positive.

Ro Khanna, a democratic member of the congress that Musk has known for more than a decade, commented: “When his numbers went back, Trump's interest also did interest. Trump has an effect when her reviews fall and it is very transactional. It is nothing more than an initial fascination and a feeling of being thrown away.”

Khanna, whose congress district is sitting in the heart of the California Silicon Valley, had predicted from the start that Musk would not take longer than four or five months: “I said that he would be frustrated, exhausted and Washington – not – not – with regard to the function of the city.”

At that time, Khanna hoped that Doge would cut in the Pentagon. Instead, the constitution exchanged it to reduce the US Agency for International Development (USAI), the Ministry of Education, the Internal Revenue Service and other goals.

“I said there is no way that he would approach almost $ 2 cuts. He didn't even get near a trillion. It is about $ 81 billion. He learned the lesson that many very successful economic leaders learn that democracy is much harder than they imagine and do not bow to their will.” Said Khanna.

In fact, Musk continues to beat roadblocks. On Wednesday, the American peace institute thought about control over his headquarters after a federal judge declared that the dismissal of his board and the employee was illegal. On Thursday, a federal judge in San Francisco said that Trump could not restructure and reduce the US government without the consent of the congress, and it would probably be expanding the implementation of mass reductions.

Nevertheless, Doge has already taken deep cuts to the workforce and the expenditure and in some cases tried to close entire agencies, which is caused by the government tissue.

For example, the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is not ready for the start of the hurricane season in the next month, “as can be seen from an internal internal review of the Agency. The disaster aid agency, which employs more than 20,000 employees, has lost around 30% of full -time employees for discharges and purchase recordings.

Khanna warned: “We will live with the consequences in the coming years [the National Institutes of Health]You have destroyed the FDA [the Food and Drug Administration]You have destroyed the EPA [the Environmental Protection Agency]You have hollowed out so much from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and a generation will need to reconstruction.

“I hope that the damage will stop. We have to see what will continue, but hopefully these institutions will no longer give these institutions.”

Even conservatives who believe in the reduction of the government share the concerns. Rick Tyler, a political strategist who worked on Republican campaigns, said: “What you do is to do the government smaller, which I welcome, but you don't make it more efficient because there was no vision, no plan, the government actually work with fewer people and less money, and less money, and less money, and less money. There is no redesign. This is just slash and burn. “

Tesla, the main source of Musk's prosperity, has suffered considerable brand damage and sales due to his political work, especially in Trump. He has also expressed support for the right-wing extremist anti-immigration AFD party in Germany. Tesla dealers have become scenes of protest and vandalism in the USA and beyond.

Musk may have hit his political Waterloo in Wisconsin. His expenditure of at least 3 million US dollars has contributed to the fact that Wisconsin's top breed in the US story is the most expensive of its kind. On the weekend before the election with a cheesehead hat that is popular with fans of the Green Bay Packers of the NFL, he even appeared personally.

But the candidate he supported lost 10 percentage points. Democrats had used his intervention to successfully mobilize the voters in a choice called “People VS Musk”.

This week Musk said to Bloomberg's Qatar -Wirtschaftsforum in Doha: “I will do much less in the future with regard to the political expenditure.” The chairman of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, Ben Wikler, told The Associated Press: “People have won. The largest donor in Republican politics is to take his toy and go home.”

Obviously, Musk and his chainsaw have become political liability for Republicans who are aiming for re -election in the means of the next year. Democrats in races across the country Musk are expected to use their opponents as a political Boogeyman.

Tyler stated: “The election figures, Trump, who suffered politically what his party would hurt, what his agenda would hurt, caused enough arguments that he certainly heard of enough members to say, we could no longer talk about Elon Musk?”

Wendy Schiller, Professor of Political Science at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, added: “It was a test balloon about how they would reduce the federal assistant. If it worked and people thought it was great, they might go with or without a musk, but they used it as a front person and the punch.

“There is no one that you can believe that Donald Trump considers it to be positive for his popularity or his stand in a positive way because he believes that he creates all of this himself. And I don't think he was wrong. But when you become liability, you are gone pretty quickly.”