Elon Musk has publicly weighed in on Donald Trump’s choice for U.S. Treasury secretary, one of the last key cabinet appointments the president-elect will make in the coming days.
Musk urged his supporters on head the Treasury Department.
Lutnick, former CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, a company that lost 658 employees in the Sept. 11 attacks, is reportedly competing with Scott Bessent, the founder of capital management firm Key Square, who has said he wants the U.S. remain the world reserve. currency and use tariffs as a negotiating tactic.
“My point of view is that Bessent is a status quo choice, while @howardlutnick will actually make changes,” Musk job SATURDAY. “The status quo is bankrupting America, so we have to change somehow. »
Musk urged his supporters to “provide feedback on this so that Donald Trump will take the comments into account.”
Lutnick recently told the Wall Street Journal that whoever Trump hires “will be loyal to the president’s policies,” telling the outlet: “All my life I’ve been a fiscal conservative, a social liberal…The Democratic Party has away from me.
Both Lutnick and Bessent support Trump’s trade tariff policies, a tactic he used against China during his first term. “Customs tariffs are a way to finally defend the Americans”, Bessent wrote in an op-ed on Fox News Friday.
But both candidates argue that lower taxes would offset rising import costs and promote economic growth.
But some economists have warned that the tariffs could weaken growth, boost inflation and lower employment. A recent article The Peterson Institute for International Economics projects that inflation will reach at least 6% by 2026 and that consumer prices will rise 20% over the next four years.
Musk’s intervention in the battle between Lutnick and Bessent for the key position – the one who advises the president on economic and fiscal matters, including spending and taxes – comes amid concern over the closeness of the space and transportation entrepreneur with Trump.
Musk, the world’s richest person, is expected to co-chair an advisory department, the Department of Government Effectiveness, or Doge, within the new administration to shrink the departments and cut up to $2 trillion in unnecessary federal spending.
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According to the Washington Post, some members of Trump’s entourage expressed surprise that Musk could influence the choice of Treasury secretary. “People are not happy,” one said, according to the outlet, adding that Musk was acting as “co-chair.”
Musk, who has spent more than $100 million supporting Trump’s campaign, has been almost constantly at the president-elect’s side, including on a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
On Saturday, Musk appeared to mock Zelensky’s assertion that Ukraine is an independent country that could not be forced to the negotiating table with Russia, posting on X that the Ukrainian leader’s “sense of humor is incredible.”
Musk and Trump met later Saturday at ringside at New York’s Madison Square Garden, the site of a widely criticized pre-election rally, for a UFC title fight. Alongside them were Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Robert F Kennedy Jr, Joe Rogan, Tulsi Gabbard and Vivek Ramaswamy, who is expected to lead Doge with Musk.