Marco Rubio has been exasperated. Here, he was in the room of the Cabinet of the White House, the Secretary of State, seated next to the President and listening to a litany of attacks by the richest man in the world.
Sitting diagonally opposite, through the elliptical table in mahogany, Elon Musk let Mr. Rubio have him, accusing him of not having cut his staff.
You dismissed “person,” Musk told Mr. Rubio, then added that the only person he had dismissed was a staff member of the Musk government ministry.
Mr. Rubio had been in private with Mr. Musk for weeks since his team has actually closed an entire agency which was supposed to be under the control of Mr. Rubio: the United States agency for international development. But, during the extraordinary meeting of the cabinet on Thursday in front of President Trump and twenty others – whose details have never been reported before – Mr. Rubio withdrew his grievances from his chest.
Mr. Musk was not true, said Rubio. What about the more than 1,500 officials of the State Department who have taken an early retirement in redemptions? Have they not counted as layoffs? He asked for sarcastically if Mr. Musk wanted him to re -shock all these people just so that he could demonstrate them to dismiss them. He then presented his detailed plans to reorganize the State Department.
Mr. Musk was not impressed. He told Mr. Rubio that he was “good on television”, the clear subtext being that it was not good for much else. Throughout all this, the president sat on his chair, his arms have folded, as if he was watching a tennis match.
After the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable moment, Trump finally intervened to defend Mr. Rubio as “excellent work”. Mr. Rubio has a lot to manage, said the president. He is very busy, he always travels and on television, and he has an agency to manage. So everyone just needs to work together.
The meeting was a potential turning point after the first frantic weeks of Mr. Trump’s second term. This gave the first significant indication that Mr. Trump was willing to put limits to Mr. Musk, whose efforts have been the subject of several prosecution and aroused concerns on the part of the Republican legislators, some of which complained directly to the president.
Cabinet officials almost uniformly like the concept of what Mr. Musk has decided to do – reducing waste, fraud and abuse to government – but have been frustrated by the chain saw approach to overthrow the government and the lack of constant coordination.
Thursday’s meeting, which was suddenly scheduled for Wednesday evening, was a sign that Trump was aware of increasing complaints. He tried to offer something on the side by renting both Musk and his secretaries of the cabinet. (At least one, the secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, who had tense meetings linked to Mr. Musk’s team, was not present.) The president clearly indicated that he was supporting the mission of the Musk initiative. But it was the time, he said, to be a little more refined in his approach.
Now, he said, the secretaries would be in charge; The Musk team would only advise.
We do not know what the long -term impact of the meeting will be. Mr. Musk remains the biggest political financial supporter of Mr. Trump – just this week, his Super CAP broadcast a million dollars of announcements that said: “Thank you, President Trump” – and the control of Mr. Musk on the social media website X made members of the administration and secretaries of the cabinet who target them in public.
But if nothing else, the session exposed tensions within Mr. Trump’s team, and the news of net clashes quickly spread in the senior ranks of cabinet agencies after the end. This account is based on interviews with five people with knowledge of events.
In an article on social networks after the meeting, Trump said that the next phase of his federal workforce reduction plan would be carried out with a “scalpel” rather than a “war ax” – a clear reference to the approach of the SCORCHED Earth of Mr. Musk.
Mr. Musk, who brought a costume and a link to the meeting on Thursday instead of his usual t-shirt after Mr. Trump publicly upset him by his sloppy appearance, defended himself by saying that he had three companies with a market capitalization of tens of billions of dollars and that his results spoke for themselves.
But he soon encountered members of the cabinet.
A few moments before the explosion with Mr. Rubio, Mr. Musk and the Secretary of Transport, Sean Duffy, made back and forth on the equipment of the state of the Federal Aviation Administration for the follow-up of the planes and what type of correction was necessary. Howard Lungick, the trade secretary, jumped to support Mr. Musk.
Mr. Duffy said that the young staff of Mr. Musk’s team was trying to dismiss air controllers. What am I supposed to do? Mr. Duffy said. I have several airplane accidents to manage now, and your people want me to draw air controllers?
Mr. Musk told Mr. Duffy that his statement was a “lie”. Mr. Duffy insisted that this was not the case; He had heard it directly. Mr. Musk, asking who had been dismissed, said: Give me their names. Tell me their names.
Mr. Duffy said there was no name because he had prevented them from being dismissed. At another time, Mr. Musk insisted that people hired under the diversity, equity and inclusion programs worked in control towers. Mr. Duffy rejected and Mr. Musk did not add details, but said during the round trips that Mr. Duffy had his phone number and had to call him if he had problems raising.
The exchange ended with Mr. Trump telling Mr. Duffy that he had to hire people from MIT as air traffic controllers. These air traffic controllers must be “geniuses,” he said.
The secretary of veterans, Doug Collins, faced one of the most politically sensitive challenges of all the secretaries of the cabinet. Mr. Musk’s cuts will assign thousands of veterans – a powerful district and an essential part of the Trump base. Mr. Collins argued that they should not handle an blunt instrument and cleave everyone from the VA that they needed to be strategic on this subject. Trump agreed with Mr. Collins, saying that they should keep the most intelligent and get rid of bad.
In response to a request for comments from the New York Times, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in a statement: “As President Trump said, it was a large productive meeting among his team members to discuss cost reduction measures and staff through the federal government. Everyone works as a team to help President Trump keep his government more effective. »»
Tammy Bruce, spokesperson for the State Department, replied: “Secretary Rubio considered the meeting as an open and productive discussion with a dynamic team that is united to achieve the same objective: to make America again large.”
A spokesperson for the Ministry of Veterans Affairs said: “As President Trump said, it is important to increase efficiency and reduce bureaucracy while keeping in place the most productive and productive federal employees. Will work with Doge and the rest of the administration to do exactly that. »»
Friday, in an article on X, Mr. Duffy congratulated Mr. Trump and the work that Mr. Musk’s team does and said that it was an effective meeting of the cabinet. He added that “the FAA department of FAA was eliminated day 2” and that “Mr. Trump’s approach to a scalpel compared to an ax and better coordination between the secretaries and Doge is the right approach to revolutionizing the way our government is managed.”
Mr. Musk, who said later on X than the meeting of the cabinet was “very productive”, seemed much less enthusiastic inside the room. He defended himself aggressively, reminding the secretaries of the cabinet that he had built several companies of a billion dollars from zero and knew something about the hiring of good people.
Most members of the cabinet have not joined the fray. Mr. Musk’s anger directed against Mr. Rubio in particular seemed to catch people in the room by surprise, said a person knowing the meeting. Another person said that Mr. Musk’s caustic responses to Mr. Duffy and Mr. Rubio seemed to dissuade the other members of the cabinet, many of whom complained of the Musk team, to speak.
But it remains to be seen how long this new arrangement will last.