Elon Musk and Trump’s Shadow Transition Team
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Back in 2016, most of the Trump presidential transition took place in midtown New York. He's just had a lot more meetings for the president-elect. He's meeting with people across many different categories of the government. People like Anthony Scaramucci — that's whose voice you just heard — went in and out of Trump Tower. Politicians, businesspeople, even Steve Harvey would head through that distinctive, shiny lobby trailed by a pool of reporters.

This time around, the vibe is very different. Now what's happening is Trump is at Mar-a-Lago and he is having these meetings with people behind the scenes. That's Teddy Schleifer, who covers politics and rich people for The New York Times.

And then a couple of miles away at the Trump transition offices in Palm Beach, there are a number of people who range from hired Trump aides to kind of friends of Elon Musk who are all vetting candidates. And they're sort of doing this all in a very, very different way than 2016, where we had a lot of insight into what was happening. And I guess a lot of it was very, very public.

You wrote a piece recently where you had this anecdote about President Trump bringing Elon Musk and Larry Ellison into a meeting. Can you describe that scene for me? So Larry Ellison is one of the richest people in the world, is not somebody who you think about every single day, but he lives in Florida. He lives actually very close to Mar-a-Lago. And Trump had both Larry Ellison and Elon Musk

who is a good friend of Ellison's, in his transition lair in Mar-a-Lago. And, you know, this was, I think Trump was joking. We think Trump was like basically joking in a sort of joking, not joking way, where he's kind of talking to the room and he says something along the lines of like, you know, I brought the two richest people in the world today to meet with you all. What did you guys bring? Yeah.

Ellison is not the second richest person in the world alongside Elon Musk to fact check that. But whatever. And this is all in the tea room at Mar-a-Lago. And Trump is sort of just basking, I think, in the wealth that he has surrounded himself with at this point. What does all of this signal to you about the way this administration is going to be run?

I think the point of our story and the reason we led with that anecdote was, you know, Trump is likes rich people. I mean, he is a rich guy. He surrounds himself with rich guys. Lots of his picks have been other rich guys. But I think what that moment tells me is just kind of the rise of the tech people specifically. And, you know, this is something I've been writing about for years.

six or seven years now, sort of the increasing kind of power of the right wing in Silicon Valley. And, you know, Ellison is from an older generation, right? I think he's about 80 years old. But around the transition, there are tons of people who are 30, who are 40, who are 20, who are basically coming from Silicon Valley and have these strong,

connections to Trump world. And they're helping run the transition in ways that would be surprising. You know, Larry Ellison is not officially on the transition committee, nor frankly is Elon Musk. People forget. But there's kind of all these people who are from the tech industry who are rich and are playing this kind of hidden role in shaping the picks.

Today on the show, Teddy takes us behind the scenes at Mar-a-Lago to the group of Silicon Valley Trump whisperers influencing the second term, who they are, what they're doing, and what they want. I'm Lizzie O'Leary, and you're listening to What Next TBD, a show about technology, power, and how the future will be determined. Stick around.

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There is, of course, an official Trump transition team. It's led by Howard Lutnick, the president-elect's pick for commerce secretary, and Linda McMahon, who he has tapped to lead the education department. And then there is the unofficial team, a group of people who largely orbit around Elon Musk. You know, Musk...

has like a sphere of influence is probably the best way to put it. You know, he obviously is a kind of a cult hero to lots of people in the world, frankly. And,

and in Silicon Valley, even, even among kind of his friends, there's this kind of cultish, you know, uh, element to him where Musk is somebody who they make money with somebody who they party with somebody who they, you know, grew up with in some cases who they founded companies with. A lot of these people are investors in Musk's own companies. Um, so the cast of characters includes a lot of people who, uh,

are not household names. Like someone like Sean McGuire is a name that I imagine most listeners have not heard of, but he's an investor in Sequoia Capital, which is kind of one of the main leading venture firms in Silicon Valley. And he's been very involved in interviews for the Pentagon. And, you know, that's because, to make no bones about it, it's because he has a relationship with Elon and Elon has brought him there, right? And...

There are lots of people like that. Someone named John Herring or Mark Pincus, who founded Zynga, or David Marcus, who is kind of a crypto executive. There are lots of these people. Then there are folks like Jared Birchall, the head of Elon Musk's family office. According to Teddy's reporting, Birchall has interviewed candidates for jobs at the State Department, despite having no experience in foreign affairs. And you could ask yourself...

Who elected Jared Bershul? I mean, who elected Elon Musk, frankly? But there are all these kind of friends of Elon who have...

this influence in this administration. And they're not very, very well-known figures. And like, I'm not trying to be hyperbolic about it or say this is the worst thing in the world. I mean, this is the way the world works, which is if you play a key role in electing the next president, you have influence and then you can use your influence to give influence to other people. And so a lot of these Musk friends have a lot of power right now and they seem to be enjoying it.

Well, you're setting up really two questions I have, which is, number one, like, what business does the head of Elon's family office have vetting people for the State Department? Number one. And number two, is there any precedent for this? Because in presidencies that I have covered or transitions that I have covered and remember, there's

they were run much more like a transparent government or quasi-government operation. I don't think there's a precedent for this in modern times. I mean, it's interesting because speaking of precedent, like, you know, I've talked with a lot of people involved in this, like, they definitely see a precedent. I mean, they see a precedent in, you

you know, Abraham Lincoln team of rivals or best and the brightest that were kind of helping, you know, presidential administrations, you know, 50 to 100 years ago, or, you know, they see this as a Manhattan Project. In fact, the word Manhattan Project has been used to describe the Musk government efficiency panel. The idea here being that all of these private sector individuals, and this goes to your first question, these private sector people who have

technology shops in this case, but more broadly are successful individuals can, you know, rethink kind of the fundamental, um, fundamental problems with government, um, and do it better. Um, and that is maybe naive, but it also reflects, I think, a belief that they have that government is not working in their opinion. Um, and, um,

their inexperience is sort of the point, right? It's not like, oh, you know, crap, we wish we had Jared Birchall, but he doesn't happen to have any experience. I mean, like the point is that, you know, at least from Musk's point of view, is that someone like Jared Birchall has experience in something else, right? And, you know, being a high competency person who helps Musk not have so much debt or whatnot. And who's to say that that can't help choose a good State Department executive? You know, I mean, that sort of is the idea.

Do we have a sense of what all of their roles are? You mentioning Jared Birchall interviewing people, um, May Musk, Elon's mother, uh, had a TV interview on Fox. She said she likes to sit in on meetings. And I feel like it's really hard to know what to make of that. Is that, you know, like, oh, I just wanted to peek in and see what my son is up to. Or is this someone who has absolutely no experience in this arena? Um,

doing a role that is otherwise often done by more experienced political hands.

Yeah, I think I guess one thing, Lizzie, I want to make clear is like there are experienced political hands doing this, too. Yes, there is an actual transition team. Right, right, right, right. It is not as if this is the entire transition team. But, you know, I think what you're getting at is like, what are these what's the impact of this? Like, what do these people want? What are they doing here? Like, are they just I think to some extent they are just vetting existing candidates. Like, I haven't really seen that many examples, frankly.

I don't know if this is going to make people feel better of like,

Well, Trump was going to name this person secretary of defense, but then like all the tech people said like, no, let's do this guy instead. And then like, like I feel like generally they're weighing in on the existing options, you know, but they do have clear policy priorities. I mean, and these are not going to be surprising. I mean, in general, this group, and I'm definitely casting, you know, this is a generality here. They are,

in favor of less government regulation, especially on industries that matter to the tech industry, such as crypto and AI. A lot of them have been involved in defense department things specifically, and in general, they're pushing for kind of more of a role for private contractors, companies like Anduril or Palantir, so kind of a more Silicon Valley inflected view of defense spending and defense technology.

You know, they were involved with candidates like the FTC selection that happened this week. You know, so sort of antitrust concerns. I even found it terribly surprising where all the tech people are pushing for X, Y, or Z. You know, oftentimes they're pushing for candidates they like, candidates they don't like. But, like, it's not as if they are running the transition or putting entirely new people in or, you know, encouraging, you know, America to annex Pluto.

When we come back, vetting and strategy and conflicts of interest. Oh, my. This podcast is brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

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One of the things that I think is really interesting here is that with pretty much any presidential campaign in the modern era, you have some degree of donor service, right? Like you mentioned ambassadorships or, oh, someone gives a big amount of money and they are featured at this particular inaugural ball or they have good seats for the inauguration. So

So what I'm trying to tease out a little bit is how much of this is donor service. Hey, you guys helped us out. Therefore, you get to hang out and be where the action is. And how much of it is, hey, we're going to actually have you interviewing our candidates.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's evolved. And I don't know to what extent, you know, Trump let the fox into the henhouse here to some extent. I mean, like he he clearly wanted Elon. It started with Elon, right? Elon spends all this money on the presidential election. He ends up having this power. Quarter of a billion dollars. Yeah. And then suddenly Elon's at Mar-a-Lago. And then he's, you know, I remember, you know, we reported that.

Maggie Haberman and I the first night that like Elon was going to the election party and that was like a big scoop right for like those five hours or whatever it was and then like he never left right I mean like like like the the real story in retrospect was like Elon is going to be spending the next couple of weeks here um it wasn't like Elon is spending a couple hours here um you know like I think one one good question is like you know there's been some reporting some of it I haven't totally agreed with but about like the extent to which Trump has been

annoyed by these people and about, about Elon specifically, like why is he still here? But like you could see the argument to be made. Like if you are a, you know, trusted Trump aid who, you know, stuck with him through January six or, you know, during the fought hard in Iowa and knocked on doors or, you know, proverbially knocked on doors or whatever. Um, and then suddenly, uh,

You have like random Elon Musk friend who has never really, you know, worked hard for Trump. You know, they've worked hard to cultivate a relationship with Elon. You could be like, why are these people just equal to me in choosing the next secretary of state? So you can see you see the potential for conflict in terms of why all these people ended up here in the first place.

Well, let's talk about the potential for conflict of interest, because you have people who have interests in you named two military tech companies, right? Andral Palantir. Right.

There are people involved who also stand to gain from any formal or informal alliance with the Trump administration. I wonder how that translates both in the next four years, but then also how that might translate back in Silicon Valley. So-and-so has the ear of the administration, so we better take what he has to say even more seriously. Yeah, that's true. I mean...

conflicts of interest are part of what happens when private sector people get involved in politics and government. Like, you know, I think, I don't want to say it's much ado about nothing, but I do think that these things are managed all the time. The conflicts are managed. And if you, like, to me, it's table stakes when you have someone that rich or any of Elon's friends who are as complicated and have as complicated financial pictures as lots of venture capitalists do. Like,

There are conflicts to manage. And I think what's unique about this crew

is that they're not, well, it's not clear that they're taking formal positions in government where those conflicts need to be managed or will be managed or are thought to have, that where management of the conflicts is seen as important. Certainly in the past, it has been seen that way. Right. But those have been full-time positions, right? Where it's like, okay, if Elon Musk was becoming secretary of treasury, right, we would know that Elon Musk would be

divesting and there's, you know, tons of people, people on Wall Street have gone to become Secretary of Treasury. There's a tradition and laws that govern how this happens, right? I think what's unique with the tech people is

and frankly with the Doge department that Elon is talking about, it's not really clear if these people are government employees. And so it's not really clear how the conflicts are going to be managed at all. Like, you know, Trump named the other day David Sachs, who's another character here and is a very, very close friend of Elon Musk's. David Sachs was named the AI and crypto like czar. But then it became clear that,

within a couple hours that it wasn't actually a full-time position. And he's staying at his venture capital firm, which has investments in AI and crypto. And I mean, I don't know the answers here, but like, that's a conflict you would think you would have to, you would say like, oh, that's a conflict to manage. But is it? Because it's not a full-time job. And like, is it actually going to be managed or not? I mean, I genuinely don't know the answers here. But to me, I think what's unique about the tech people's involvement is that

It is being done outside of the normal disclosure regime or appears to be right now.

One of the things that you have followed so closely over the last several years is the way a certain group of people in Silicon Valley have become interested in conservatism or even more so, and then really become interested in Donald Trump. And there's been a fascinating thing that happened right around the election. And then even after where you have high profile tech people, you

kind of loudly declaring their fealty, congratulating him like Jeff Bezos did, or the Wall Street Journal has just reported that Mark Zuckerberg is donating a million dollars to the inaugural fund.

Is this an awareness among some people in Silicon Valley that Trump was not a huge fan of them beforehand? Are they you know, is this butt covering? Is this please don't please don't prosecute me like I'm trying to understand. Or is this a, you know, political evolution?

I think it's genuine. I mean, I think for lots of wealthy people, a lot of the story starts with COVID and this sense that like, you know, things were out of control and they were misled by the media and misled by the scientific establishment. And, you know,

you know, I mean, pre-COVID also, you know, there was this sense in Silicon Valley from 2015 to 2020 that like, you know, people were out to get them, like this kind of victim mentality. And, you know, obviously there was, you know, much more antitrust scrutiny on kind of tech companies. And, you know, and lots of wealthy people felt the media was writing too many hit pieces. And, you know, this sense that

that things had gone out of control in their perspective. And then that leads to, you know, the election of Biden and sort of, you know, all the economic concerns that, frankly, not just billionaires had, but regular people had too. And then you have Trump come into office or come into the Republican nomination at the beginning of this year.

The Trump campaign also made a point of appealing to leaders in the tech world. There was a reason that these people weren't supporting Trump during the Republican primary.

But, you know, like Trump on crypto, you know, Trump used to not really be pro-crypto. And then he sort of realized, you know, I don't know if he really cared about the issue that much, but, you know, we just saw that, okay, there's a bunch of rich people who care a lot about this issue who don't like Joe Biden. Like, let's be more pro-crypto, right? Or AI, like, I don't know if Trump is a expert on the issue, but like he sees the energy around this and, you know, suddenly he's talking about AI and he's talking about China and, you know, certainly the selection of J.D. Vance as a VP nominee, you know,

and then you had the involvement of Elon and sort of, you know, it all flowed from there. So I think it was both macro context, but also some intentional decisions made by Trump, also intentional decisions made by Biden, you know, to not, and then to Harris to a lesser extent, to not

really welcome these people in as much as he could have. I mean, you know, this much has been made about Elon's political transformation. And like, you know, there are certainly Democrats today who wish that this had gone differently, right? And wish that Biden or Harris or Obama or Clinton, you know, had done a better job of playing kind of the politics with them and making sure these tech leaders did not spend $250 million to elect the other guy.

One thing that does stand out here is just the amount of money and billionaires involved. It's maybe not surprising for modern politics, but it is at odds with the kind of populism Trump claimed to represent on the campaign trail. I'm not surprised. I'll put it that way. Right. I mean, you know, I think Trump clearly

respects rich people just fundamentally. And, you know, um, especially this is an interesting point that a Trump person made to me once about with the Elon relationship where it's like, Trump really respects rich people, especially when he doesn't really know what they're doing. Like he doesn't know their field. Right. And, and like, you know, when Trump, like, why did Trump go to the Elon SpaceX launch, you know, in Texas? It's like,

big crazy rocket going on the air. What's going on? Like, this is not like real estate, right? Or, or, or, or, um, a field that Trump knows a lot about. And I feel like, well, this has been told to me that part of the reason Trump kind of likes Elon so much is like, he's learning about, or he's impressed by the, by the,

you know, big explosions and big cars and all that stuff. You know, Trump also, I know, like, it's another anecdote that I have reported is David Sachs, I mentioned a few moments ago, hosted this fundraiser for Trump in San Francisco in June. And, like, Trump was very impressed by Sachs' house, right? And, like, there's an element of, like, oh, rich guy likes to see fancy things and he equates wealth with success. And for all the populist rhetoric, I mean, like, that's...

Just kind of the way Trump is, and that's kind of how he grew up in the business. Teddy Schlafer, as always, thank you for talking with me. You bet.

Teddy Schleifer covers politics for The New York Times. And that is it for our show today. What Next TBD is produced by Evan Campbell, Patrick Fort, Shaina Roth, and Ethan Oberman. Our show is edited by Paige Osborne. Alicia Montgomery is vice president of audio for Slate, and TBD is part of the larger What Next family. And if you like what you heard, the best way to support us is by joining Slate Plus. You get all your Slate podcasts ad-free, as well as exclusive bonus content.

And it's a really nice holiday gift. All right. We will be back on Sunday with another episode. I'm Lizzie O'Leary. Thanks so much for listening.

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