A Trump and Musk love-in on Hannity

When your fiercest loyalists are accusing your government of being taken over by Elon Musk, who they brand a “parasitic illegal immigrant,” what’s the best way to respond? Donald Trump opted for a side-by-side interview with the X CEO on Fox News, speaking to Sean Hannity, the anchor with whom he remains friendliest. 

And for all the attempts — both from inside and outside the conservative tent — to drive a wedge between Trump and tech billionaire Musk, the two seemed chummier than ever. 

Responding to Hannity’s claim that the mainstream media wants to see the pair get a divorce, Trump was nonplussed. “Oh, I see it all the time,” he said, before admitting he was unimpressed with the attempts to stir up problems between the two. 

“I used to think they were good at it,” he laughed. “They’re actually bad at it, because if they were good at it, I’d never be president because I— I think nobody in history has ever gotten more bad publicity than me.” 

Stand by for the fact-checkers — back from their four-year sabbaticals — set to weigh in on Trump’s claim about his bad publicity. 

But why is Trump, someone notorious for enjoying being the center of attention, so willing to share the spotlight with Musk? To put it simply: game recognizes game. 

The president respects not just Musk’s genius but his ability to execute on his unconventional ideas and get results. “But he gets it done,” Trump explained to Hannity. “He’s a leader.” 

The president is particularly confounded by some of Musk’s technological achievements. In past interviews he has talked at length about watching the sixth test launch of a SpaceX Starship spacecraft. On Fox, Trump focused on Starlink, another Musk-founded company, which is described as “a compact, portable kit that can easily fit in a backpack, designed to provide high-speed, low-latency internet on the go.” 

Describing the devastating situation in North Carolina post-Hurricane Helene, Trump recounted calling up Musk and asking him to help the people of the Tar Heel State. “And he got, like, thousands of units of this communication, and it saved a lot of lives. He got it immediately.” Trump, who rarely sleeps, seems to value Musk’s competence and drive. 

But why is Musk, who in his own words “used to be adored by the left”, willing to forego a salary to work with someone whose reputation has managed to turn him from a liberal darling to a “Nazi” nepo-baby overnight? 

Perhaps it’s because, as Representative Ayanna Pressley so eloquently explained to a group of disgruntled DoGE protesters, Musk wants to “get his grubby hands on mee-maw and granddad’s Social Security information.” That’s one theory. 

Musk offered up his own reasoning for his participation in the current administration that will surely launch his haters into orbit. “I think President Trump is a good man,” he calmly expressed. He later added, “ At this point, [I’ve] spent a lot of time with the president, and not once have I seen him do something that was mean or cruel or — or wrong.  Not once.” 

Which scenario are people likelier to believe? That either a) money-hungry Musk wants to steal your grandparents’ Social Security numbers or b) Musk likes Trump and believes in the MAGA movement?

While Trump marvels at Neuralink and SpaceX, Musk is fascinated by Trump for an entirely different reason: his ability to drive people completely insane. 

Musk explained that he attended an event shortly after endorsing Trump and it was eye-opening. “I still attended, even after I’d endorsed President Trump, and I didn’t realize how profoundly that would affect, you know, how I was received,” he chuckled. “I mean, I walk into the room and I’m getting just the dirty looks from — from everyone. Like, if looks could kill, I would have been dead several times over.” 

Since deciding to head up the Department of Government Efficiency and hiring a group of twenty-somethings to audit government waste, Musk has caused Trump Derangement Syndrome to mutate into a new strain. 

His desire to find fraudulent and wasteful spending has sent DC into hysterics. After acknowledging that the reactions are an indication that DoGE is doing something right, Musk pointed out the hypocrisy of the criticisms. “All we’re really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the president,” he said. “And — and what we’re finding is there’s an unelected bureaucracy. Speaking of unelected, there’s a — there’s a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the — the president and the cabinet.” 

That unelected bureaucracy impeded Trump’s first administration. After all, an Executive Order is useless if the agencies and civil servants tasked with carrying it out simply defy it. 

“One of the biggest functions of the DoGE team is just making sure that the presidential Executive Orders are actually carried out,” Musk told Hannity. 

In other words Musk has found the nine scariest words in the English language for unelected Trump-Deranged bureaucrat hacks: I’m from the DoGE and I’m here to help.