Top Trump allies reveal how he REALLY feels about Elon Musk as MAGA faithful sours on the ‘shadow president’
Billionaire Elon Musk has had extraordinary access to and influence over Donald Trump, but now some influential Trump allies are calling him a “clinger” and saying Trump is sour about his overstay guest.
Among those torching the world’s richest man for his outsized influence is MAGA enthusiast Laura Loomer, who has helped foment a MAGA civil war over visas for high-tech workers.
“I think a lot of people have a hard time speaking truth to power, and a lot of people are afraid to stand up to billionaires,” Loomer told Steve Bannon on his War Room Pandemic podcast. “He’s the richest man in the world, so he kind of revolves around President Trump.”
“When I called him the other day, I said he’s a Stage 5 clinger,” she added. “It sounds like people are afraid to cross the king, the king of the world, Elon Musk, the monarch,” she says told conservative commentator Eric Bolling in another interview. “This is the problem with getting a billionaire to donate $200 million.”
Amid the ongoing battle for influence in Trump’s inner circle, some insiders are going after the billionaire with sharp blind quotes.
“100 percent Trump is annoyed,” a Trump insider who worked on the last campaign said told Mediaite. “There is a Chinese saying: ‘Two tigers cannot live on one mountain peak.’
This line points to Trump’s longstanding annoyance at being overshadowed — something Democrats tried to stoke before Christmas by deriding him as “Vice President Trump” and claiming Musk was really in charge .
Billionaire Elon Musk has been a constant associate of Trump and has been outspoken on policy issues on Some insiders now say Trump is tired of his regular guest
In fact, Musk, who is taking on an outside and advisory role, is just one of more than a dozen billionaires Trump is bringing into government.
But at times he seemed ubiquitous — both in person at Mar-a-Lago, where the New York Times reported he is present. Paying $2,000 a night to crash in a cottage at the president-elect’s private golf club – and online on his X platform.
It’s that some of Musk’s posts have irritated longtime MAGA supporters. Musk tore up a bipartisan spending measure to keep the government open, helping to undermine the deal and leaving Republicans with a short-term funding extension that falls short of Trump’s demands to end or raise the debt ceiling.
And South Africa-born Musk published an incendiary post on Saturday defending visas for high-tech foreign workers, weeks after a campaign in which Trump demanded a mass deportation operation to drive out millions of migrants who came to the country illegally.
“The reason I’m in America, along with so many critical people who built SpaceX, Tesla and hundreds of other companies that made America strong, is because of H1B. Take a big step back and F*** yourself in the face. I will wage war on this issue that you cannot possibly understand,” Musk wrote.
That prompted Bannon to call Musk a “toddler.”
Right-wing political activist Laura Loomer has criticized Musk online and on a podcast
‘You stole their lives’! Trump ally Steve Bannon demanded compensation for high-tech workers as he spoke out against H-1B visas in the latest skirmish in the MAGA civil war over the issue
Trump Chief of Staff Susie Wiles (Trump’s left) told nominees to get their social media posts approved
Donald Trump sided with Elon Musk in a MAGA ‘civil war’ over visas for skilled migrant workers
The flap forced Trump to come out. He ultimately advocated for the visas, and Musk called for reform of the program, an idea Bannon also ridiculed.
The uproar is believed to have prompted new White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles to issue a stunning memo ordering new lieutenants to have all their online messages on X or other platforms pre-deleted.
The board games reached the point where Trump chose to address them publicly in remarks at the Turning Point USA activist conference in Phoenix on December 22.
“He’s not going to be president, I can tell you that,” Trump said. ‘I’m safe. Do you know why? He can’t be. He was not born in this country,” Trump said, laughing. “But the fake news knows that.”
Only Trump truly knows his feelings about the billionaire who has spent $277 million supporting Trump and other Republicans — although one insight comes from a cryptic online message Trump publicly posted on X Friday.
‘Where are you?’ Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “When are you coming to the ‘Center of the Universe’, Mar-a-Lago.” He then suggested that Bill Gates come visit. ‘We miss you and x!’ Trump wrote, presumably referring to Musk’s son X Æ A-Xii, known as D.J.T.’
Then the tone and personal nature of the message led to speculation that Trump intended to send it as a private direct message. If so, it would indicate that Trump hasn’t had enough of Musk.
And on Tuesday afternoon, the Trump transition leveraged his relationship with Musk to sell white MAGA hats for the inauguration. “Trump could wear this hat on Inauguration Day. Elon could wear this hat on Inauguration Day. Melania could wear this hat on Inauguration Day. And many other MAGA Patriots,” the request read.