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Joining us right now is a CNN contributor and long-time tech journalist, Kara Swisher, also the author of *Burn Book: A Tech Love Story*. It's good to see you, Kara. Thanks for being here.
What do you think of this relationship and how it's developed between Elon Musk and Donald Trump? How much influence do you think Elon Musk could be having on Trump's views and agenda? And policy?
Well, I don't know. I don't cover Trump. I know Elon very well, but I'm told that whoever the last person in the room is for Trump often has control of him. And of course, Trump’s attracted to the wealth and the, you know, the glamor around Elon Musk. I guess it’s glamor. I don't quite know what it is—nerd glamor. So he's going to have some influence. He definitely inserts himself all the time. That’s his style. That’s why he’s just suddenly shown up there like the guest that wouldn’t leave.
I’ve heard from some Trump people calling me saying, “Oh, wow, this is odd.” And I’m like, “Yeah, it is. You’ll see much more of it.” But he’s not going anywhere until Trump throws him out, which could happen because they’re both really strong personalities who like to be at the center of attention.
I heard you say that, and I wanted to ask you about that. It’s something I don’t think a lot of people have appreciated or pointed out yet: they both have—Elon Musk is a big personality. Do you think that this aspect of Elon, who, you know, could really help him, could really push him to kind of flame out in terms of being in favor with Donald Trump pretty quickly?
Well, you know, they’re both narcissists, and there can be only one narcissist as head of the country, and that’s Donald Trump, who just won the election. I think, you know, he owes things to Elon. But at some point, if he takes too much of the attention—think about Steve Bannon. You remember he was on the cover of that magazine and how quickly he got out, even though he was critical to Trump’s first campaign. He was right in the middle of the White House, and then he wasn’t.
Trump, you know, goes through people like tissues, essentially. And I think even if it’s Elon Musk, and Elon has a lot of money and means, they’re going to clash at some point. There are also a lot of people around Musk who are, you know, going to get increasingly nervous. Again, as I said, I’ve heard from a number of them that, you know, they were like, “Oh, you’re kind of right about this guy.” And I was like, “Yeah, I told you. He wants influence.”
And since he can’t run for president because he comes from South Africa, he’s going to try to exert as much influence as possible in these first critical days to get what he wants, which is that it’s always about what Elon Musk wants. Just remember that.
Okay, so on that note, I wanted to ask you about Ukraine. One of the first things we heard after the Trump win was that Musk joined the phone call between Donald Trump and Ukrainian President Zelensky the day after the election. Elon Musk’s Starlink internet service is critical to Ukraine’s troops battling this Russian invasion, and it is not hard for people to put two and two together if they want and see that it’s hard not to interpret that.
Musk’s presence on the call could have something to do with Trump’s potential leverage he could be looking for to have Zelensky when he wants, when he’s vowed to end the war.
I think that’s too much chess; these people play checkers. Musk plays chess. But, you know, you wouldn’t have the head of the person who makes tanks in the room and threaten Ukraine. This is just because he was probably just sitting there, which Trump has done on occasion, and he just puts him on the phone. I mean, this is not someone with any foreign policy expertise, even though he has companies that are around the world.
One of the reasons he bought Twitter is so he would have more impact with his other businesses like Starlink and Tesla. So that, you know, when he walked in the room, he wasn’t just the car guy; he was the Twitter guy. It’s very important globally, especially with autocratic leaders, to have that power.
Federal workforce on edge: federal employees telling CNN in a new report that they are preparing for what could be major changes and a potential purge when Donald Trump returns to the White House, some describing a growing sense of dread about what’s to come for the civil servants who keep the government working.
CNN’s Rene Marsh has this new reporting, and she’s joining us now. Rene, tell us more about what you’re learning.
Well, Kate, we are in a new dystopian hellscape. That is from a federal employee via text message just last night. And this is the mindset of many of the 2 million federal workers anticipating Donald Trump’s return to office.
Now, to be very clear, what Donald Trump is promising for federal workers is unlike anything we have seen in our lifetimes. He’s proposing reverting to a structure of government that existed 141 years ago when political parties gave government jobs to their supporters. That’s what federal workers, who I’m speaking with, are so anxious and so scared about.
Now Trump’s plan, we know it as schedule, would give him the power to start these mass firings of nonpartisan career employees perceived as disloyal, who might get in the way of his policy actions at these agencies. Now, Trump’s plan for the federal workforce is not a surprise; he repeated this plan to voters on the campaign trail and called federal workers agents of the deep state working against him and his agenda.
Some employees who lived through his first presidency say right now they’re experiencing PTSD, one of them telling me, “We are absolutely having conversations amongst ourselves about whether we can stomach a second term or a round two,” as they put it.
But it’s not just these mass firings; we’re also expecting a second Trump presidency will mean mass transfers of senior executives and relocation of agency offices—something we saw during Trump’s first presidency that led to lots of these federal employees deciding to retire or resign.
Elon Musk is also potentially involved in this aspect of the Trump administration as well. What does Elon Musk and his influence mean for these workforce reductions?
It certainly appears that Elon Musk has the ear of the president on this issue. I mean, Trump’s proposal for a government efficiency commission would be, as we understand it, headed by or have some involvement from Elon Musk, the billionaire who has pushed for a task force.
He has promised that this task force could slash some $2 trillion in government spending. So that is just another layer of uncertainty that these federal workers are aware of, and it’s just creating this heightened level of anxiety.
Kate, Rene Marsh, thanks for the reporting.