The Trump administration has had enough of Elon Musk as Cabinet meeting devolves into chaos
The Trump administration has finally reached its limit with Elon Musk as a Cabinet meeting allegedly devolved into chaos and shouting over his interference and arrogance.
Following the 2024 presidential election, Musk has been practically joined at the hip with Donald Trump. Leading up to Trump’s inauguration, Musk parked himself on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate before following him to the White House. Although he was supposed to be taking up office space adjacent to the White House, he has continued to pop up in the White House, giving joint interviews with Trump from the Oval Office and sitting in on Cabinet and diplomatic meetings. As the head of DOGE, he seems to wield as much, if not more, power and influence as Cabinet members. Yet, he didn’t go through the same process. Instead of receiving an official nomination and going through the Senate, Musk was simply handed the role of head of DOGE – a department and position Trump created without input from Congress.
In his role, Musk quickly got to work dismantling USAID, freezing foreign funding, and firing federal workers across the government. Given the numerous mistakes he made, such as comprising CIA agents and firing mandatory nuclear workers, he was presumably circumventing some of these department heads and cabinet members to instigate his mass purge. After weeks of watching Musk parade around as if he’s co-president and wreak havoc on the government, Trump’s Cabinet seemingly reached its breaking point.
Marco Rubio and Elon Musk clash in chaotic Cabinet meeting
On March 6, the surprising news broke that Trump had directed his Cabinet members that Musk was not allowed to fire any federal workers and that they, not Musk, were in charge of their departments. Trump gave the directive during a Cabinet meeting in which Musk was present. While Trump later posted to Truth Social optimistically calling the meeting “positive,” most Americans likely suspected the reining in of Musk wasn’t as smooth as he suggested. Sure enough, The New York Times White House reporter Jonathan Swan and White House correspondent Maggie Haberman detail quite the explosive and dramatic meeting.
According to the report, the meeting turned chaotic as Musk clashed with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. It doesn’t appear Musk went into the meeting aware his role would be limited, as he began laying into Rubio, trying to micromanage him and the State Department. Despite the thousands of workers fired, Musk was apparently distressed that Rubio didn’t fire more people, telling him he “fired nobody.” At this point, Rubio went off on Musk, reminding him that 1,500 State employees took early retirement buyouts and inquiring if Musk wanted him to rehire all these people just to fire them performatively. Musk responded with an insult suggesting Rubio was good for nothing besides TV appearances, sparking an explosive and awkward shouting match as Trump looked on.
Meanwhile, Musk also had a heated argument with Duffy after Duffy accused DOGE’s young, inexperienced workers of trying to force him to fire air traffic controllers while he dealt with multiple plane crashes. Musk then accused Duffy of lying and continuing to employ air traffic controllers under DEI practices, leading to a he-said-she-said argument before Trump intervened. In the end, Musk lost his firing privileges and had to acknowledge that he only served an “advisory” role and could not make decisions and take action himself.
Although it was initially suspected Trump’s sidelining of Musk was a tactic to avoid legal action, it now seems he was forced to act due to the number of internal complaints over Musk. Musk later claimed he agreed with the directive, though he vehemently defended himself during the meeting and insinuated he knew more about the Cabinet heads. While it’s hard to believe he’ll be content for long with his “advisory” role, it’s still satisfying to see the unelected bureaucrat reined in a bit.
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