Elon Musk Has Been Brought to Heel and His Influence is Waning

After reports of Musk screaming matches in the White House akin to WWE, it's being reported that Musk has soured on Washington, his influence has waned, and he has been "brought to heel."

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Senior Trump administration officials were reportedly not surprised by Musk’s announcement that he was stepping back from DOGE during a Tesla earnings call about the company’s catastrophic decline.

Musk has soured on Washington, Politico reports. He doesn’t like the lack of control that comes with the way our founders set up our government (on purpose, perhaps in anticipation of someone like him, and on this score, they missed a lot). Musk is “used to getting his way and making the final calls with his businesses.”

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“Musk has seen his influence waning and has been brought to heel by other Cabinet secretaries and people in the White House in recent months, as the insistence on coordinating their efforts has slowed his break-neck speed,” they write.

As an example of this, they cite the way Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent took control back from Elon Musk in the IRS “by firing DOGE staffer Gavin Kliger and installing a new IRS commissioner last week. IRS firings which were expected to begin last week and go out on a biweekly basis still have not materialized.”

Indeed, the fighting between Bessent and Musk escalated into a shouting match last Thursday within earshot of Trump and other officials, according to Axios, which a witness described as “two billionaire, middle-aged men thinking it was WWE in the hall of the West Wing.” Axios noted that Bessent's net worth is actually $520 million, but the point stands.

Here are Lawrence O’Donnell and Jen Psaki talking about the Musk/Bessent screaming match:

WWE White House

Two billionaires treating the White House like World Wrestling Entertainment sounds exactly like the script I’d write for Trump 2.0, especially because the fighting in WWE is scripted and the winners predetermined. It’s a ruse that makes a lot of money because it’s “entertaining”, much like how many people see Donald Trump.

… Or saw him, until this term got started and the Dow headed for worst April since 1932 as investors lost their faith in the U.S. thanks to Trump’s economic “policies” of bullying allies and disrupting global trade and blowing up trading partnerships.