The partnership between the president and the richest man on the earth is coming to an finish. There may be one clear loser within the breakup of this affair, and it’s Elon Musk.
He fell from grace as effortlessly as he rose. Like a dime-store Icarus, he took too many possibilities, by no means understood the dangers and flew too near the solar. Wrapped within the halo of his social-media superstardom, he was blinded to the fact of his circumstances till it was too late.
Mr. Musk has already inked a number of profitable federal contracts and will get much more, however he leaves Washington along with his popularity as a genius jack-of-all-trades — a popularity he relied on to spice up his firm’s inventory costs and win traders for his formidable adventures — severely broken. As soon as likened to the Marvel superhero Tony Stark, he’s turning into more and more unpopular. Many previously proud homeowners of his Tesla electrical vehicles are buying and selling them in or pasting apologies on their bumpers. Gross sales have plummeted.
Mr. Musk is hardly the primary rich businessman to decamp to Washington: The Gilded Age millionaires, high hats in hand, centered on currying favor with the Senate, the place legal guidelines had been made and tariffs decided. With the collapse of the economic system, the New Deal and the approaching of a world struggle, the White Home started to play a considerably bigger position in directing the economic system, and the businessmen paid it extra consideration. Dozens of them descended on the capital; others joined the cupboard. Irrespective of when or in what place they served, nonetheless, they performed by Washington’s guidelines, taking up well-defined, restricted tasks and, for essentially the most half, staying out of public view.
Mr. Musk broke with that custom. No one was going to close him up or rein him in. He was within the White Home along with his 4-year-old son on his shoulders, on the stage of a Conservative Political Motion Convention rally, selling his cost-cutting campaign by waving a series noticed. He and his Division of Authorities Effectivity deputies unfold chaos by way of Washington, locking employees members out of pc methods, having access to private information on non-public residents and figuring out authorities workers they deemed expendable.
At first, President Trump appeared to endorse each cost-cutting transfer by his unorthodox adviser, declaring on social media that he and his cupboard had been “EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON.” However Mr. Musk then violated the cardinal rule of Trumpland by daring to criticize the president’s insurance policies and appointees — not simply a few times however with outstanding consistency.
He jumped on his X platform to deride a White Home proclamation that Sam Altman, the highest synthetic intelligence government and his archrival, and others had been going to take a position $100 billion in information facilities to generate the electrical energy required to energy A.I. applications. Mr. Musk proclaimed in an interview that Social Safety was “the most important Ponzi scheme of all time,” ignoring the truth that the president had vowed to not reduce such spending. He even took situation with Mr. Trump’s triumphant “Liberation Day” announcement of sweeping new tariffs.
His bullying and lack of regret as he slashed federal spending and dismissed tens of 1000’s of presidency workers eroded his recognition. He infuriated cupboard members by criticizing them in public, trespassing on their authority and refusing to acknowledge the White Home chain of command.
Fittingly, his reign was successfully dropped at an finish on April Fools’ Day, when the $20 million he donated to elect a Trump-backed Republican to an open State Supreme Courtroom seat in Wisconsin backfired, propelling extra Democrats than Republicans to the polls. It was not doable to miss the fact that the richest man on the earth had develop into a political legal responsibility. The day after the Wisconsin debacle, Politico reported that the president had “instructed his internal circle” that Mr. Musk can be “stepping again within the coming weeks from his present position.” In mid-April, Mr. Trump signaled his dwindling regard for Mr. Musk by changing his selection for I.R.S. performing commissioner with the candidate favored by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
On April 22, Mr. Musk introduced that he was slicing again on his authorities work so he may spend extra time at Tesla, which by then was in a lot hassle, experiences emerged that the board was contemplating changing him as chief government. (The corporate denied the assertion.) The truth that hit Wisconsin’s polls hit his automotive firm even tougher: Gross sales dropped 20 p.c within the first quarter of 2025 in contrast with the yr earlier than; earnings dropped by 70 p.c. The flashy, impractical Cybertruck he had championed proved a flop. Within the meantime, Tesla is quickly dropping market share to the Chinese language automaker BYD and different established carmakers.
That’s to not say Mr. Musk’s different enterprise pursuits — significantly his rocket launch firm, SpaceX, and his satellite tv for pc unit, Starlink — are struggling. SpaceX is poised to achieve billions of {dollars} from authorities contracts. The Trump administration has already cleared the way in which for Starlink to be eligible for the federal government’s $42 billion rural broadband push and even inspired different nations keen to scale back U.S. tariffs to do enterprise with Starlink. However such promotions would most certainly have been the case had Mr. Musk not joined Mr. Trump’s administration.
The lesson to be realized right here is that there isn’t any room within the American system of presidency for an unelected co-president. Whereas elections typically yield outcomes we don’t count on or need, we have now lengthy proved to be higher off with a authorities composed of elected officers and senior appointments which have gone by way of the constitutionally mandated affirmation course of. Mr. Musk thought he might be an exception. And that was his undoing.
David Nasaw is an emeritus professor of historical past on the CUNY Graduate Heart and the creator of the forthcoming ebook “The Wounded Era: Coming Dwelling After World Battle II.”
The Occasions is dedicated to publishing a variety of letters to the editor. We’d like to listen to what you consider this or any of our articles. Listed here are some suggestions. And right here’s our electronic mail: letters@nytimes.com.
Observe the New York Occasions Opinion part on Fb, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
