Donald Trump And Elon Musk Sure Are Spending A Lot Of Time Together

During his first visit to Washington since becoming president-elect, Donald Trump reportedly remarked on all the time he has been spending with the billionaire tech CEO Elon Musk.

“Elon won’t go home. I can’t get rid of him,” Trump said, according to The Hill.

Musk, who accompanied Trump to Washington, has by some accounts practically become a member of the Trump family. By others, the world’s richest man may be overstaying his welcome.

Several new reports out Wednesday described the extent to which Musk has infiltrated Trump’s transition planning at his Mar-a-Lago club after the Tesla CEO used his money and influence to propel Trump to the White House.

According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk personally spent $200 million to elect Trump, appearing on the campaign trail in custom gothic “Make America Great Again” gear.

After spending election night at Mar-a-Lago alongside the Trump clan, Musk stayed at the Florida club for several days with his 4-year-old son, X, a nanny and a security team, The New York Times reported.

He posted a photo of X on his shoulders the day after the election, with the caption “Novus Ordo Seclorum,” which is Latin for “a new order of the ages.”

Over the weekend, the father-son pair posed on a golf course alongside one of Trump’s grandchildren, Kai Trump, who captioned the photo, “Elon achieving uncle status.” The Musks also showed up in a Trump family photo.

Politico reported that the president-elect was spotted riding around in a golf cart introducing Musk to club members and dining outdoors with Melania Trump.

Trump continues to speak highly of Musk in public. But sources told NBC News that Musk’s near-constant presence has been wearing on others’ patience.

“He’s behaving as if he’s a co-president and making sure everyone knows it,” one person told NBC News. “And he’s sure taking lots of credit for the president’s victory. Bragging about America PAC and X to anyone who will listen. He’s trying to make President Trump feel indebted to him. And the president is indebted to no one.”

Musk reportedly has an opinion on nearly everyone Trump is considering adding to his new administration, and has sat in on certain calls with foreign leaders. He has been turning to David Sacks, a fellow South African American businessman, for advice, the Times noted.

The newspaper also said Musk even sat in on a national security meeting with aide Stephen Miller and Donald Trump Jr., the president-elect’s eldest son.

Musk responded with a crying-with-laughter emoji to a CNN clip where a political analyst called him Trump’s “first buddy.”

“I’m happy to be first buddy!” he wrote on X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter that shares a name with his son.

How long this cozy friendship between two ego-driven men will last has been the subject of some scrutiny on social media.

The ethical implications of Musk hanging around Trump so often have also sparked concern, given that Musk oversees several companies that are subject to federal regulations and now appears to have a say over who will make decisions that could affect his companies.

Musk will supposedly have a role in the Trump administration at least through July 4, 2026, the deadline Trump set to conclude the work of a government spending commission Musk will oversee alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. The name of the commission, the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, is an homage to dogecoin, a digital currency that Musk has endorsed.