After Elon Musk Bends Knee to Donald Trump, Trump Throws Him Under the Bus

"I don't think he could be in the cabinet."

Cabinet Loss

Elon Musk has done a lot of cheerleading for presidential candidate Donald Trump lately, from organizing a pro-Trump super PAC, to hosting a bizarre, malfunctioning interview with him on X-formerly-Twitter. But if Musk expects to be rewarded for his loyalty, he may be in for a rude awakening.

Though Trump has teased that the billionaire business magnate could have a role in his administration, the former president is now sounding more iffy about the prospects of a Musk cabinet post.

"He wants to be involved. Now look, he's running a big business and all that, so he can't, really. I don't think he could be in the cabinet," Trump said in a recent interview with former Navy Seal Shawn Ryan, as quoted by The Daily Beast.

"I'd put him in the cabinet, absolutely, but I don't know how he could do that with all the things he's got going," he added. "But he could sort of, as the expression goes, 'consult' with the country and give you some very good ideas, like on AI. There's nobody knows more about it than Elon."

Wait a Secretary

Musk has seemed very optimistic about being directly involved in Trump's government, even if that prospect now seems a tad dimmer.

After Trump said he'd consider awarding him with a cabinet post in an interview with Reuters last week, Musk tweeted an AI-generated — and eminently eye-roll worthy — image of himself standing at a podium in front of an American flag.

"I am willing to serve," he wrote in the tweet.

The image labels Musk as representing "D.O.G.E." — the Department of Government Efficiency — a callback to Musk's longtime obsession with the cryptocurrency Dogecoin, as well as his interview with Trump, in which he floated the idea of having a "government efficiency commission."

"I'd be happy to help out on such a commission," Musk said, as quoted by The Daily Beast.

Full Plate

Trump is right to be hesitant. Musk is — or at least should be — a very busy man, as the CEO of SpaceX, and as the owner of Twitter, Neuralink, and xAI (though he somehow finds the time to tweet almost nonstop.)

And as the Daily Beast notes, his many business ventures may prevent him from serving in public office, due to almost certainly being conflicts of interest. (Then again, that didn't stop Trump from being president.)

Whether or not Musk actually ends up as a department or committee head somewhere in Washington, it's undeniable that his political ambitions have become a lot more naked as of late. It was only six months ago, after all, that he promised he wouldn't donate to either presidential candidate. Now, he's practically in bed with one.

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