The presence of Elon Musk among those close to Donald Trump has continued to make those around him sweat. During the transition period, the omnipresence of the sulphurous billionaire at Mar-a-Lago had already upset many of the Republican's advisors, who criticized him for wanting to get involved in everything. The tension between the South African entrepreneur and certain people close to the president escalated further this week. Some of Donald Trump's main collaborators and allies were very unappreciative of Elon Musk publicly criticizing his AI megaproject, called “Stargate”.
A White House official told Politico that Elon Musk got “very carried away” by spending his day on Wednesday denigrating Donald Trump's project. Another Republican close to the White House reveals that the president's staff is “furious” with the South African, whom he accuses of having used his gigantic platform on social networks to skyrocket this agreement. “He clearly abused his proximity to Donald Trump. The problem is that the president has no means of pressure on him and that Elon absolutely does not give a damn,” worries this source.
It is very rare for a senior advisor – in this case Musk – to criticize a president's decisions in public. Within the Republican Party, we are wondering more and more insistently whether the friendship between Donald Trump and the man who has been nicknamed the “First Pal” will really last. Elon Musk was not present when Donald Trump presented the “Stargate” project, which brings together the “cloud” specialist Oracle, the Japanese investment giant SoftBank, and the generative AI start-up OpenAI (ChatGPT).
However, Elon Musk does not hold OpenAI CEO Sam Altman in his heart. He also spent a good part of his day on Wednesday trolling him on social networks. “They don’t have the money. (…) SoftBank is only guaranteed $10 billion,” he wrote on X. Donald Trump assured that Elon Musk’s criticisms did not bother him. “He hates one of the people involved in the deal,” he told reporters.
