What does Elon Musk want?
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2024
⏱️ 24 minutes
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Summary
Elon Musk invested millions of dollars to help Donald Trump’s reelection campaign through the political action committee America PAC. The result was a massive door-knocking campaign in critical swing states and million-dollar giveaways to voters who signed a petition. Musk held rallies and town halls across Pennsylvania, spoke at Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally, and was alongside the president-elect at Mar-a-Lago on election night.
Now Musk has been picked to help lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, with the goal of cutting government spending and streamlining regulations.
Tech reporter Trisha Thadani spoke with Martine Powers about Musk’s political affiliations and his role in a future Trump administration and how it could benefit Musk’s companies.
Today’s show was produced by Ariel Plotnick and edited by Maggie Penman. It was mixed by Sam Bair. Thanks to Lucas Trevor, Bishop Sand, Reena Flores, Sabby Robinson and Emma Talkoff.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | So, Tricia Sadani, you cover the tech industry for The Post. |
| 0:05.5 | Can you just describe a little of how the Elon Musk-Donald Trump relationship has evolved and really grown these last few weeks? |
| 0:16.2 | Yeah, so just take the places that they've been spotted together. |
| 0:20.2 | They've been at rallies together. |
| 0:23.2 | They've been spotted on a golf course together. |
| 0:28.9 | They watched the election night returns at Mar-a-Lago with Trump's family. |
| 0:34.9 | And then he was on a call with Ukraine President Zelensky a few days after election day. |
| 0:41.3 | And now what we learned Tuesday night is that he has officially been appointed to the so-called Department of Government efficiency. |
| 0:50.3 | The stated goal of this so-called department is to find efficiencies within government, |
| 0:58.2 | basically find out where budgets can be cut, where staffs can be cut, you know, how can you make the government more lean? |
| 1:05.4 | There's obviously a lot of questions on how effective this will actually be, |
| 1:08.9 | but what's really notable here is that Elon Musk is at the top of it. |
| 1:14.7 | From the newsroom of the Washington Post, |
| 1:16.9 | this is Post reports. |
| 1:18.1 | I'm Martine Powers to Wednesday, November 13th. |
| 1:21.5 | Today on the show, we are talking about the budding friendship |
| 1:24.4 | between the president-elect and the richest person in the world, |
| 1:28.0 | and what it means for how the country will be run for the next four years. |
| 1:40.1 | Tricia, before we dive more into the role that Musk might play in Trump's presidential orbit, |
| 1:47.1 | first I want to understand what has Musk's involvement in politics looked like over the course of his career? |
| 1:54.0 | So over the last couple of months, we've seen Musk really out front campaigning for President Trump. |
| 2:00.5 | He started this super PAC back in the spring called the America PAC, which he has donated at least |
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