“A star is born: Elon,” said Donald Trump in a lengthy shout out to his biggest donor while claiming victory in the US presidential race on Wednesday morning.
Trump’s impending win ushers in a new era for Musk — already the world’s richest person with a $260bn fortune — whose gamble on a knife-edge US election paid off as he is set to become one of the president’s most influential political and business advisers.
Musk’s promised role as head of a new Department of Government Efficiency will give the billionaire sweeping powers to recommend deep cuts to what he deems a “vast federal bureaucracy . . . holding America back in a big way”.
Musk has also vowed to champion deregulation and will gain influence over US policy on artificial intelligence, space exploration and electric vehicles — all sectors that he has a personal stake in through his leadership of xAI, SpaceX and Tesla.
“He’s a character, he’s a special guy, he’s a super-genius,” Trump said of Musk on Wednesday. “We have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many of them.”
Earlier in the evening, Musk posted a photograph of himself carrying a sink into the Oval Office, an offbeat reference to a similar photo which he tweeted when he entered X just ahead of acquiring the social media platform for $44bn in October 2022.
Another picture on Tuesday showed him huddled in conversation with Trump and podcaster Joe Rogan at an election night party at Mar-a-Lago in Florida with the caption: “The future is gonna be so [fire emoji].”