He held the courtyard in the oval office in a t-shirt and a blazer with a child hanging on his shoulders. He takes private meetings on Capitol Hill, offering his phone number to the senators to express their complaints, as if they were his voters. And last month, he brandished a chain saw when he promised to reduce expenses, to the delightful cheers of conservative activists.
Seven weeks after the start of President Trump’s second administration, Elon Musk did not simply upset the government. Its omnipresence in Washington has also quickly become an unpredictable factor that could reshape politics across the country.
Already, the Slash-And-Brûlée style of the billionaire and the seeing cuts have repercussions far beyond the Capitol, which means that the legislators of the deep states begin to sweat. He showed a desire to share the elections directly, both by spending locally and threatening to miss his fortune to stifle dissent within the Republican Party.
And he gave hope to the Democrats looking for a message they can use against Mr. Trump, playing a main role in the new advertisement for their candidates and by several party campaign weapons. Democratic agents happily exchange private surveys suggesting that Mr. Musk could prove a serious responsibility for the president.
While many presidents have relied on family members or close friends as advisers, the country has never seen an unadumped billionaire and a newcomer to electoral policy obtaining such a powerful and prominent perch in the White House.
Mr. Musk’s support for Mr. Trump – who came with nearly $ 300 million in financial support – may have helped him win the presidency. But their unusual governance arrangement opens the Republicans to be politically not only shot in Trump, but also to Mr. Musk, while his Ministry of Government Efficiency Press for what could prove to be unpopular reductions in federal programs and government jobs.
Some Republicans already recognize potential political dangers, expressing a light but notable word on one of Mr. Trump’s largest priorities.
“In my state, these are still jobs and the economy,” said Senator Shelley Moore Capito, who said that she had aroused anxious calls from voters from Virginia-Western. “And whenever someone loses a job, he has a political risk for anyone in power, there is no doubt.”
The risks for the Republicans extend beyond the possible effects of its cups on voters. Mr. Musk is an eccentric figure which has long been without restriction by filter or convention, protected by his wealth and his elite status in the technological industry. In one interview With Joe Rogan last week, he made word games on the Nazis, speculated on the sex robots fueled by AI and criticized the idea of social security – Give the Republicans who have long diverted the eyes of the more bizarre public statements of Mr. Trump something new to avoid.
Now, these ideas seem to have an open door to the oval office, thanks to a partnership that raises eyebrows even among some of their supporters.
“I don’t really know what this relationship implies, with him and the president,” said Ms. Capito. But she added, she supported the idea of dimensioning the government.
“I think we are just going to go up and see, see what’s going on,” she said.
Democrats are impatient to mount it too.
Elected officials, strategists and party activists adopt a museum strategy to reach their supporters, influence the self -employed and establish a first line of attack on the Republicans.
“It’s an easy story: Elon Musk and the billionaires have taken over the government to steal the American people to get rich,” said Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, a democrat and one of the first critics of his Musk party. “This is the message. It’s true, it’s persuasive, and if we repeat it again and again, they will not win. “”
Public polls suggest that Democrats have reasons of optimism. A Washington post survey Last month, revealed that 49% of American adults disapproved of the work that Mr. Musk was doing in the federal government, while 34% approved. A bench investigation Released on February 19 revealed that 54% of respondents had an unfavorable vision of Mr. Musk and only 3% had not heard of him. And a Marist College Poll Monday discovered that half of the respondents had an unfavorable opinion on Mr. Musk. A slightly smaller part – 44% of respondents – had an unfavorable opinion in his department, but only 39% had a favorable opinion.
A survey published by the search for a progressive navigator has shown that Mr. Musk is less popular than the president – especially among the less educated and the least committed supporters of Mr. Trump – and better known than many of the administration. A survey of a democratic organization in February revealed that Mr. Musk had a much stronger name recognition than Vice-President JD Vance.
Mr. Musk’s printur made alone the initiatives of the administration less popular, another private survey revealed: when his name was explicitly linked to his renowned effort, the government’s Ministry of Efficiency, the voters expressed a more unfavorable vision of the program.
Mr. Musk has already become an important factor in political battles outside of Washington. In Wisconsin, Democrats quickly seized a million dollars donation By its political action committee on behalf of a conservative candidate who presents himself for a highly contested Supreme Court seat. Wisconsin Democrats now traded the entire competition as “People against Musk.”
In Virginia, the Democrats of the Chamber of Delegates arise advertising Presenting Mr. Musk’s face and accusing Trump of reducing advantages and increasing costs. Mr. Musk also includes at least one high -level democratic primary. In the race of the governor of New Jersey, candidates Like the representative, Mikie Sherrill, frequently evokes Mr. Musk on the stump. Images of M. Musk making a gesture that looked like a Nazi salute also appears in a announcement by an external group supporting Ms. Sherrill. She and the representative Josh Gottheimer, another competitor, were also attacked for having received donations from the SpaceX corporate political action committee in the previous campaigns.
And House Majority Forward, a Super CAP supporting the Democrats who present themselves in the House, published advertisements this week targeting 23 vulnerable republican legislators with a message that presented Mr. Musk and made no mention of Mr. Trump. One of the advertisements Said that the Republicans would prohibit Medicaid, would force the closure of rural hospitals and eliminate health insurance for low -income children to “finance massive tax reductions for Elon Musk and the billionaires”. It ends with video sequences from Musk shouting and waving a chain saw during the conservative political action conference last month.
In February, the majority striker advised Democrats to present himself to the Congress to focus on how Mr. Musk’s cuts could harm popular programs such as social security and health insurance. “Although we should not have Musk, Trump and others to be rich, the public must know that the programs that the families of workers and the elderly count are in danger so that those of the administration can become rich,” wrote the group.
However, there are signs that politics around Mr. Musk already moves to Washington. The Republicans of Capitol Hill pressed him to help them better explain his actions, and some of them insist that they defend worried voters that their use or funding can be on blocking.
“We are making sure to raise our voice and raise, you know, the good job that is done in the state,” said senator Katie Britt, a republican of Alabama.
Even this sweet repression – which Mrs. Britt has reserved with praise for Musk and her effort to reduce costs – is rare in a republican party that learned to walk in Stap with Mr. Trump.
Other Republicans have expressed reservations about the role that Mr. Musk could play in government budget talks – in particular with the possibility of an imminent closure.
“Everyone, in particular Elon, must take into account how unproductive he is,” said Senator Thom Tillis of Caroline du Nord about a potential closure. In an interview, he said that most of what Mr. Musk was doing with the government’s ministry of efficiency was logical, but that there was “unique characteristics to our democracy that does not do that all of this works”.
There are a few indications that Mr. Trump himself could be amazed to brake Mr. Musk. Although he praises him during his Joint conference address Trump on Tuesday said on Thursday that his secretaries of the cabinet, not by Mr. Musk, had the power to make cuts.
“We say the” scalpel “rather than the” ax “,” wrote Trump in an article on social networks.
But as its cuts affect the life of a wider band of Americans, the Democrats are preparing to charge their opponents, during the elections of this year and then mid-term.
“It is not a debate on a Congress bill that never succeeds and has never really had an impact,” said Jesse Ferguson, a democrat strategist. “If you do not get your benefits in SA or your social security check, or if your illness is not sought, it is now has it.”
Even in an unpredictable political environment, Mr. Ferguson said: “The rules of the barn pottery still apply.”