Yesterday, President Trump did something he’s seemingly been loath to do in the first seven weeks of his new administration: He reined in Elon Musk.
My colleagues Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman have the details of the extraordinary cabinet meeting where everything unfolded, and you’re going to want to read every word. After Musk berated Secretary of State Marco Rubio for having fired “nobody,” Rubio pushed back while Trump watched. Musk scoffed that Rubio was merely “good on TV.”
Sean Duffy, a former star of MTV’s “Real World” who knows what it means to be good on television — and is now the secretary of transportation — played his own role in the conflict earlier in the meeting, when he spoke in defense of air traffic controllers, some of whom, he said, Musk’s aides were trying to fire.
What was clear was that some of the nation’s cabinet secretaries had hit their breaking point with Musk’s efforts to steamroll the federal government. And while Trump said he still supported Musk’s mission, he gave his secretaries something they wanted. As Jonathan and Maggie wrote:
From now on, he said, the secretaries would be in charge; the Musk team would only advise.
The encounter stood as the first indication that Trump is willing to put some limits on the billionaire, even if those limits would do little more than bring the realities of Musk’s wide-ranging role more in line with how the administration’s lawyers have described it in court.
But the limits, if they hold, could raise bigger questions about the role Musk will play in the government going forward — especially if his history in the business world is any guide.
Ryan Mac, a colleague of mine who covers big tech, has reported on Musk for a long time. Today, I asked him if Musk had ever been content with an adviser-style role, one in which he doesn’t run the show.
Ryan’s answer was simple: No.
Musk has never liked being one voice among many, Ryan explained. Vivek Ramaswamy, who was initially going to be Musk’s partner in leading the Department of Government Efficiency, is long gone. Musk doesn’t sit on a lot of boards. And throughout his corporate history, whenever he hasn’t initially had control over a company, he’s tended to seek it.
At Tesla, where he was an early investor, he became the chief executive. Before he bought Twitter and renamed it X, he almost joined the company’s board. Then he decided to acquire the company outright, fire its board of directors and executives and become the chief executive. (He later named a new C.E.O. but retains considerable control over the company.)
Not all of Musk’s bids for control have worked. Decades ago, for example, he was forced out as the chief executive of PayPal. His effort to get control of OpenAI — a nonprofit he co-founded in 2015 — failed, as did his more recent bid to buy it.
Musk, it seems, prefers to be the bride, not the bridesmaid. The question now is whether he’ll stick to Trump’s directive that he simply advise — and whether he’ll be content if he does.
AGENCY REPORT
Getting fired, and then rehired
Musk has promised to take a chain saw to the U.S. government. But when it comes to federal jobs, it’s looking a bit more like a yo-yo.
Even as the Trump administration continues to slash federal jobs, several federal agencies have begun to reverse course.
In some cases, essential workers — including those who maintain the U.S. nuclear arsenal — have been rehired. In others, public opposition has resulted in some fired workers getting called back. And lawsuits have also resulted in temporary reversals.
My colleagues on the graphics team are tracking the back-and-forth, and they laid out this timeline of firings and reinstatements:
