By CHRIS MEGERIAN and MICHELLE L. PRICE
WASHINGTON (AP) — Donald Trump headed to Brownsville, Texas, on Tuesday to look at one in all Elon Musk ’s firms take a look at its Starship rocket, the most recent signal of a deepening bond between the president-elect and the world’s richest man.
Ever since Musk started tenting out at Mar-a-Lago after the election, there’s been hypothesis over when Trump would develop uninterested in having him hanging round and giving him recommendation on operating the nation.
However Tuesday’s outing was a exceptional show of intimacy between the 2, one with implications for American politics, the U.S. authorities, overseas coverage and even the potential of people reaching Mars.
Musk spent round $200 million to assist Trump beat Democrat Kamala Harris within the presidential race, and he’s been given unparalleled entry. He’s recommended Trump on nominees for the brand new administration, joined the president-elect’s cellphone name with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and been tapped to co-chair an advisory panel on chopping the scale of the federal paperwork.
Musk may gain advantage personally as nicely. SpaceX, his rocket firm, has billions of {dollars} in authorities contracts and the objective of finally beginning a colony on Mars. He’s additionally CEO of Tesla, which manufactures electrical automobiles, and has battled with regulators over security issues involving autonomous driving.
“Trump has the most important doable regard for individuals who break the principles and get away with it,” mentioned William Galston, a senior fellow in governance research on the Brookings Establishment, a Washington-based assume tank. “Musk has demonstrated extraordinary accomplishment in doing that.”
To prime if off, Musk owns the social media firm X, formally often known as Twitter, which he has harnessed as an influential perch to advertise Trump and his agenda.
“Cease the Swamp!” he wrote on Tuesday as he shared a warning that entrenched Washington pursuits are attempting to undermine Trump earlier than his inauguration.
Earlier than the election, Musk rejected the concept he was anticipating any favors in return for supporting Trump within the presidential race.
“There isn’t a quid professional quo,” he posted on X in September. “With a Trump administration, we are able to execute main authorities reform, take away bureaucratic paperwork that’s smothering the nation and unlock a brand new age of prosperity.”
Nonetheless, Trump has not gone anyplace with out Musk within the two weeks since beating Harris. Musk joined Trump at a gathering with Home Republicans in Washington and sat subsequent to him at an Final Preventing Championship match in New York. The journey to Texas for the rocket launch will probably be Trump’s third time exterior Florida because the election.
A lot of Trump’s exercise is occurring with little public entry for the press. Not like his predecessors, he has opted in opposition to repeatedly making his journey plans or occasions open to journalists.
The connection between Trump and Musk was not all the time so shut.
Two years in the past, Trump was mocking Musk in stump speeches and Musk was saying it was time for Trump to “cling up his hat & sail into the sundown.”
“Trump could be 82 at finish of time period, which is just too outdated to be chief govt of something, not to mention the US of America,” Musk wrote on social media.
However Musk swiftly endorsed Trump after the previous president survived an assassination try in July. He rapidly turned a central determine in Trump’s orbit, showing at occasions extra like his operating mate than Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
Trump began boasting about Musk’s accomplishments at marketing campaign rallies, corresponding to when Starship’s reusable rocket booster returned to the launch tower and was caught by mechanical arms.
“These arms seize it such as you seize your child, similar to you seize your little child. And it hugged it and simply put it down, and there it was,” Trump mentioned.
Musk was with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort on election night time and has spent a lot of the 2 weeks since there. Trump’s granddaughter Kai Trump posted a photograph of her with Musk at one in all Trump’s golf resorts, writing that Musk was “reaching uncle standing.”
Final week, Musk appeared in a golden ballroom at Mar-a-Lago, seated within the middle of the room as a visitor of honor at an occasion. Trump, in his remarks on the black tie occasion, mentioned Musk’s IQ is “about as excessive as they’ll get” and praised him as “a extremely good man.”
“He launched a rocket three weeks in the past after which he went to Pennsylvania to marketing campaign as a result of he thought of this extra vital than launching rockets that price billions of {dollars},” Trump mentioned.
He joked about Musk’s fixed presence at Mar-a-Lago, saying, “He likes this place. I can’t get him out of right here.”
He added, “And you already know what, I like having him right here.”
Musk was so heralded by Trump’s crowd that he was invited to talk on stage on the occasion after Trump, during which he spoke of the president-elect’s victory like he was his operating mate.
“The general public has given us a mandate that might not be extra clear,” Musk mentioned of the election outcomes.
Worth reported from New York.
