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At the first cabinet meeting of his second term, President Trump asked Elon Musk to speak first. The man tasked with slashing the federal government spoke far more than anyone else, other than Mr. Trump.
Feb. 26, 2025, 6:13 p.m. ET
About 12 minutes into the first meeting of his new cabinet, President Trump addressed the elephant in the room. This was rather easy for him to do, since the elephant was standing 10 feet away, dressed all in black, hovering over the head of the table at which the president and the members of his cabinet sat.
“Is anybody unhappy with Elon?” Mr. Trump asked. Nervous laughter began to ripple around the room. “If you are,” Mr. Trump continued, “we’ll throw him out of here.” The cabinet started clapping.
It was meant as a joke — but just how funny did the various officials and aides crammed into the cabinet room really find the situation to be?
Days earlier, Elon Musk had gone over all their heads, ordering millions of federal workers to submit a written explanation of how they spend their days or else face termination.
Some of the cabinet secretaries and agency heads balked. Employees at the Departments of State (led by Marco Rubio, who sat on Mr. Trump’s right) and Defense (led by Pete Hegseth, who sat on Mr. Trump’s left) were told not to comply with Mr. Musk’s order. Same for the Departments of Energy, Homeland Security and Justice.
Mr. Musk then began to post about the many people who had “failed even that inane test, urged on in some cases by their managers.” The White House press secretary was unable or unwilling to explain what was happening or who reported to whom. It seemed as though the first true power struggle of the second Trump administration was underway.
