Get all your news in one place.
100's of premium titles.
One app.
Start reading
The Guardian - US
The Guardian - US
World
David Smith in Washington

‘They will collide eventually’: how long will the Trump-Musk relationship survive?

Profiles of Musk and Trump
Elon Musk in Krakow, Poland, on 22 January 2024. Donald Trump in court in New York on 29 May 2024. Composite: NurPhoto via Getty Images, UPI/Rex/Shutterstock

A picture is worth a thousand words – or, more precisely, $288m. That was the sum tech entrepreneur Elon Musk donated to Donald Trump’s presidential election campaign. His reward was dramatically illustrated by the cover of this week’s Time magazine: an image of Musk, coffee cup in hand, sitting behind the Resolute desk used by every US president since Jimmy Carter.

Some speculated that the picture of “President Musk” was designed to provoke the thin-skinned Trump, who is known to revere Time magazine and has twice been named its “person of the year”. The president reacted on Friday with a pointed joke: “Is Time magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that.”

Sign up to read this article
Read news from 100's of titles, curated specifically for you.
Already a member? Sign in here
Related Stories
Top stories on inkl right now
One subscription that gives you access to news from hundreds of sites
Already a member? Sign in here
Our Picks
Fourteen days free
Download the app
One app. One membership.
100+ trusted global sources.