Elon Musk, chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., left, and former US President Donald Trump, prior to a campaign event at the Butler Farm Show in Butler, Pennsylvania, US, on Saturday, Oct. 5, 2024.
Justin Merriman | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Elon Musk on Wednesday will join President-elect Donald Trump for his first post-election meeting with the House Republican conference in Washington, D.C., an adviser to Trump told NBC News. Trump and Musk flew to the nation’s capital together from Florida aboard Trump’s plane.
The development is the latest example of how Musk, the world’s richest man and one of the top backers of Trump’s winning campaign, has grown his presence and influence in the future president’s orbit.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has spent the last week in Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump, from his resort home Mar-a-Lago, has been assembling his second administration. Musk has been alongside Trump in nearly every meeting, The New York Times reported.
On Tuesday evening, Trump announced that “the Great Elon Musk” and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy would lead an outside commission called the “Department of Government Efficiency,” which aims to “dismantle Government Bureaucracy” and cut regulations.
The announcement included a quote from Musk: “This will send shockwaves through the system, and anyone involved in Government waste, which is a lot of people!”
Wednesday’s meeting comes as the Republican Party is slated to take power of not only the White House but also the Senate, after a national shift to the right in the Nov. 5 elections powered GOP candidates to flip several Democrat-held held seats.
While NBC has not made an official call on which party will control the House in the next Congress, Republicans appear more likely to keep their majority.
House Republicans are scheduled to hold leadership elections behind closed doors on Wednesday. They are expected to nominate Mike Johnson, R-La., to continue as Speaker of the House in the 119th Congress.
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