“First buddy” Elon Musk reportedly clashed with another member of Donald Trump’s inner circle last week—the latest sign that the outspoken tech billionaire is not universally beloved among Trump’s coterie. Musk and Boris Epshteyn, a political strategist and Trump advisor, got into a “massive blowup” over dinner at Mar-a-Lago, Axios reports. Musk reportedly accused Epshteyn of leaking Trump’s cabinet and personnel picks to the media, while Epshteyn said he didn’t know what Musk was talking about.
It’s apparently not Musks’s first spat with Epshteyn: Axios reports that the billionaire also “questioned the qualifications of Epshteyn’s favored candidates” for high-ranking administration roles, including Representative Matt Gaetz, who Trump tapped to be his attorney general.
The feud points to growing tensions between Musk and some longer-tenured members of Trump’s advisory staff, who are reportedly uncomfortable with the megadonor’s growing influence. NBC reported last week, citing multiple sources, that some Trump advisors feel Musk has overstepped “his role in the transition” and has begun to behave “as if he’s co-president.” Musk reportedly asked to accompany Trump during his meeting with President Joe Biden, which would have marked a striking break with precedent. The X owner has also weighed in with some of his own personnel preferences, posting on the site Saturday that he favored Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick for Treasury Secretary over the fund manager Scott Bessent.
Musk has been in West Palm Beach for roughly eight of the past 10 days, according to @ElonJet, a Bluesky account that tracks the movements of his private plane. In addition to weighing in on cabinet appointments and feuding with other Trump acolytes, the billionaire has sat in on major transition meetings with U.S. lawmakers and foreign leaders, shared quarter-pounders with Trump and RFK Jr., and achieved “uncle status” with one of Trump’s granddaughters. The president-elect has also tasked Musk and the entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy with leading a temporary advisory group aimed at slashing government spending by as much as $2 trillion.
