President Donald Trump is reportedly considering pushing “shadow president” Elon Musk out of his administration after the billionaire spent $25 million to elect a Republican to the Wisconsin state Supreme Court — and lost badly.
Sources within the administration have told Politico, later confirmed by ABC, that Trump has informed top advisers that Musk may be stepping out of his “special government employee” role. Though such employees are only supposed to work for the government for less than half of a calendar year, the administration previously hinted that they are considering keeping Musk in his front-and-center role past the May deadline.
Indeed, just on Monday, Trump had praised Musk when asked about his potential departure, saying that Musk will need to return to other obligations but keeping the door open, saying, “I’d keep him as long as I could keep him.”
Wednesday’s reports find that, behind the scenes, Trump is seemingly wanting to bring an end to Musk’s role, with administration insiders increasingly viewing him as an “unpredictable, unmanageable force who has had issues communicating his plans with Cabinet secretaries and through the White House chain of command,” Politico reported. Other inside sources warned, though, that Musk may stay on and just covertly step into a less public role.
As the Politico news broke, Musk was preoccupied with posting slurs and minimizing his loss in Wisconsin on his social media platform. If Musk is indeed pushed out, it will come months after the billionaire made the infamous gesture that was celebrated by neo-Nazis as a Hitler salute — and apparently swept aside as a non-issue by the administration.
The news came the day after an election in Wisconsin that Musk had heavily meddled in. The billionaire — and richest man on earth — poured $25 million into the race to support the right-wing candidate, Brad Schimel. This campaign included a stunt to give two Wisconsinites a $1 million check in a supposed contest for people who signed a petition to support conservatives. One of the two recipients shared a video suggesting that Musk had given her the check in exchange for her vote.
Despite all of Musk’s antics, however, the Democrats’ pick, Susan Crawford, decisively won the race. With an estimated 99 percent of votes counted, Crawford won with a double-digit margin, winning 55 percent of votes to Schimel’s 45 percent.
The loss is humiliating for the Trump administration and likely for Musk, whose involvement seemingly only cost Republicans votes.
One progressive commentator, Max Berger, noted on Bluesky that the margins between Crawford and Schimel were far higher than the margin of victory for the Democratic candidate in another major race for state superintendent, with that race being won by a 6-point margin — implying that Musk’s meddling cost his candidate an astounding 4 points in support.
The news also comes as Musk’s Tesla, facing a national protest movement, has plummeted in value since Trump’s inauguration, with the company’s sales going down. Tesla’s stock has lost a third of its value since the beginning of this year, losing all of the value it gained after Trump’s election.
Meanwhile, reports Wednesday found that Tesla’s sales dropped by 13 percent in the first quarter of this year, the largest drop of deliveries in the company’s history, as backlash grows against Musk and his wanton cuts to the federal government — and thousands of people’s jobs and livelihoods.
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