President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly growing frustrated with Elon Musk, his wealthiest and most vocal adviser, according to sources close to the White House transition.
Musk, the world’s richest man, has been deeply involved in the transition process after supporting Trump in the 2024 election with $150 million and relentless support on X, the social media platform he owns. However, Trump is said to be annoyed by Musk’s omnipresence and the media attention his antics are garnering.
A Trump insider who worked on the 2024 campaign described Trump’s frustration, saying, “100 percent Trump is annoyed. There’s a Chinese saying: ‘two tigers cannot live on one mountaintop.'”
The frustration intensified last week when a civil war broke out between two factions of Trump’s movement over issues such as foreign worker visas, with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy supporting the visas and sparking outrage from prominent MAGA voices and immigration hardliners like Steve Bannon. Musk responded to the backlash with an expletive-laced X post, which Bannon called a “toddler’s tantrum.”
In an effort to curb the drama, Susie Wiles, Trump’s pick for White House chief of staff, issued a memo forbidding transition officials from making comments on social media without prior approval from the incoming White House counsel.
Despite his involvement in the transition, Musk does not have a formal role in the incoming administration. He will instead be overseeing a non-governmental agency tasked with slashing government spending, alongside Ramaswamy.
Trump himself has publicly downplayed the notion that Musk is serving as shadow president, saying, “He’s not going to be president, that I can tell you. You know why he can’t be [president]? He wasn’t born in this country.”
One Trump insider described the alliance between the president-elect and Musk as “just the way Trump is,” saying, “Someone that is around that much and having influence would be a bother.”
