Battle of egos: can the Musk-Trump romance last?

“I can’t get him to leave (…) but I like having him here”: US President-elect Donald Trump’s joke about billionaire Elon Musk, who will play an important role in his future administration, could be a sign of future divergences.

After being omnipresent during the end of the Republican’s campaign, the richest man in the world stuck around and was appointed to head a commission to call for cutting public spending.

But disagreements on substantive issues and the personalities of the two men could cause a stir in their budding romance.

Boss of X, Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk is known for his obsession with work and claims a “hardcore” management style. From the factories to the board of directors, he does not hesitate to carry out abrupt dismissals or to insult the intelligence of his employees in public.

Donald Trump, whose catchphrase has long been “you’re fired” when he presented the show “The Apprentice”, demands absolute loyalty from those close to him, not hesitating to pit them against each other, according to former advisers.

According to the news site Axios, an argument broke out last week between Elon Musk and Boris Epshteyn, member of the transition team.

On Saturday, Elon Musk decided to test his influence by supporting Howard Lutnick, CEO of investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald, for Treasury Secretary.

Having entered the capital of Tesla in 2004 partially due to his concerns about global warming, Elon Musk left the committee of business leaders who advised Donald Trump during his first term in 2017 when the latter withdrew the United States from the Paris Agreement.

“Climate change is real. Leaving the Paris Agreement is not good for America or the world,” he wrote on Twitter. Since then, he has qualified his remarks, affirming in an exchange with Donald Trump broadcast on X during the campaign that “if in 50-100 years we are mostly sustainable, I think that will be ok”.

Openly climate skeptic, Donald Trump should once again withdraw his country from this agreement aimed at limiting warming.

Elon Musk made part of his fortune from the sale of electric cars but he also invested in the development of batteries and solar panels when Donald Trump bets on the fossil fuel sector, in the past derided by the boss of Tesla.

Donald Trump has appointed Chris Wright, CEO of Liberty, a well-known climate skeptic, as Secretary of Energy, with a roadmap of deregulating the sector to allow the opening of new sites.

Donald Trump threatens to drastically increase customs duties on Chinese products, at the risk of provoking a new trade war with Beijing.

China is a major market for Tesla, which has a massive factory there aimed at competing with domestic electric vehicle production.

Elon Musk has so far been careful not to criticize Chinese leaders, unlike the future Secretary of State appointed by Trump, Marco Rubio.

Known for slashing the expenses of his own companies, Elon Musk has been responsible for reducing those of the federal state.

But reducing costs could prove easier said than done, with some Republican elected officials having already expressed reluctance to reverse programs useful to their re-election.

The risk of conflict of interest is great in the tech sector, with Elon Musk accumulating rivalries in Silicon Valley.

What would happen in the event of a merger between Donald Trump and OpenAI? Elon Musk helped launch the artificial intelligence specialist a decade ago, but the breakup was tumultuous, culminating in the creation of his own company xAI.

Would the billionaire tolerate exchanges between the president-elect and Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon but also of SpaceX’s competitor in space, Blue Origin?

Would he keep silent if the Republican attacked Facebook for its anti-conservative positions while he defends freedom of expression body and soul?