Maureen Dowd: Donald Trump and Elon Musk is hardly a match made to last

I was feeling sad that Melania may not care to come play first lady in the second Trump administration.
She visited the East Wing only a couple of times during her husband’s first term, turning into the first lady of absenteeism, according to Katie Rogers, the author of American Woman, a history of modern first ladies. Her office there was so empty, her staff used it as a gift-wrapping station.
Even so, I thought we might get a little comme il faut from “The Portrait”, as Ivanka Trump nicknamed her stepmother – a small bow to protocol.
But not likely. As some in the Trump orbit point out, it’s no accident that Barron is going to New York University, not a university in Washington, DC, such as Georgetown or American.
Melania will probably “move in” to the White House and drop by the capital, looking impervious and gorgeous. But in general, the Slovenian Sphinx is going to get even more sphinxy this time. She has made her disdain for DC clear. She skipped the ritual torch-passing of having tea in the Yellow Room of the White House with Jill Biden as the two presidents met. Jill Biden had to settle for handing a note to Donald Trump to take back to Melania in Palm Beach, Florida.
The New York Post reported that Melania abhorred the Bidens because of the Mar-a-Lago documents raid in 2022, when she felt violated by FBI agents with a search warrant snooping in the drawer with her fine washables.
In an interview with Paris Match, Melania dripped more disdain on the woman who succeeded and precedes her. While Jill Biden reached out to her after the assassination attempt on her husband, she questioned whether the concern was “genuine”, given that a few days earlier, Jill called Donald Trump “evil” and a “liar”. She also said rhetoric from Democrats and the mainstream media provoked the assassination attempt.
Melania wondered if the notion of “respect” had become obsolete.
Good question to ponder as we watch people with no respect for Washington tearing it apart from the inside – starting with her husband’s bizarre nominations of people with contempt for the institutions they would run, a quartet of scandalous foxes in the hen houses: RFK jnr., Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz. (If the odious, barely-a-lawyer Gaetz is confirmed, which is a long shot, even with obedient Senate Republicans, will he heed Maga calls to reinvestigate 2020 with an eye toward proving Trump won?)
[ The Irish Times view on Trump’s cabinet picks: unhinged and unfitOpens in new window ]
As with Melania, Trump wants “the look”. (In a photo popular online, Hegseth, a Fox News host, appeared half-naked and tattooed at the 9/11 memorial.) Trump thought about appointing Brooke Rollins as chief of staff, he told people, because “she’s tall” and “she’s got the look”. He’s more concerned with appearance than any other president – or celebrity – in history.
I know the first lady role is antiquated. By scarcely doing the job last time, Melania proved just how dispensable it is. But at this moment, with the capital poleaxed as Donald Trump turns DC into a rage room, smashing all norms and protocols, I was feeling a twinge of nostalgia for first ladyhood. Would another historic tradition shatter?
Then I realised, happily, that someone else was eager to fill the role of the president-elect’s helpmeet, cheering him on and bucking him up, telling him his crowd was the biggest ever. Someone who seemed much more eager and excited to be by Trump’s side, to travel with him and bounce around onstage and look adoringly at him.
Elon Musk. Or should we call him Elonia?
[ Why Elon Musk wants a seat at the table in WashingtonOpens in new window ]
Musk is itching to clean house and fulfil the Bill and Hillary Clinton pledge of “two for the price of one”. T-shirts showing the lovey-dovey pair are being sold by Maga vendors.
Melania seemed distant in pictures with Ivanka, whom she called “the Princess”. Elonia is rarin’ to be in the picture with the Trump family. Donald Trump’s teenage granddaughter Kai tweeted a golf course picture noting that Musk had achieved “uncle status”.
Trump appointed Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to head what he called the Department of Government Efficiency, its name inspired by the classic dog meme. Musk is eager to learn how the branches of government work so he can help Trump lop them off.
Full of recommendations, many about friends and associates, Musk has been in most job interviews for the new administration, the New York Times reported. He went with Trump to meet House Republicans on Wednesday. Then, he was on the plane back to Mar-a-Lago when the deliberations happened that led to Trump picking the indecent Gaetz to replace the decent Merrick Garland.
Musk posted afterward that “the Hammer of Justice is coming”. More like the hammer of injustice for their enemies.
In addition to helping the transition, Musk has assumed diplomatic duties, sitting in on calls with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey and Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskiy, and meeting with Iran’s United Nations ambassador in New York to talk about defusing tensions. Musk also attended a national security meeting.
Some Trump advisers complain that Musk is too high-profile and too pushy about his own agenda, NBC News reported.
One Trump associate even joked to me that Musk is “the thing that wouldn’t leave”. At a Thursday night Maga gala at Mar-a-Lago, Trump teased about Musk’s ubiquity.
“You know, he likes this place,” Trump told the crowd, including, of course, Musk. “I can’t get him out of here. He just likes this place. And you know what? I like having him here, too.”
Despite all his denouncing of elites, Trump loves them and craves their respect. He was thrilled, after he raised his fist after the assassination attempt, when Jeff Bezos posted about Trump’s “grace and courage under literal fire” and Mark Zuckerberg said “it was one of the most badass things I’ve ever seen in my life”.
Trump loves Musk because he builds cool stuff, inspired Robert Downey jnr’s portrayal in Iron Man and sparked superhero memes with Musk, Trump and the Maga gang. Also, Musk turned the town square of Twitter into a political weapon and funnelled circa $150 million (€142 million) into a Trump-aligned super political action committee for the campaign’s ground game.
The two billionaires are both much-married highchair kings, relentless trolls and promoters extraordinaire who will say anything – whether it gets them in trouble or not. They both have the solipsistic attitude of a spoiled rotten 11-year-old.
They are both transactional. Musk is a glorified – and highly leveraged – defence contractor, so entwining himself with the president-elect is helpful. The mogul was born in South Africa, so he can’t be president himself; this is the closest he can get.
Still, the men make strange bedfellows, given that Musk is globalism personified, and Trump is trying to strangle globalism.
As in every blazing hot romance, there is a good chance that it will end in tears and jealousy. The moment may come when Musk, too, swats away Trump’s hand.
The first time that self-described “first buddy” Musk is on a magazine cover described as a younger, taller, better-looking “co-president”, it will be over.
Musk is probably already on thin ice because, like Trump, he has been getting standing ovations when he enters the Mar-a-Lago diningroom.
At the Maga gala, Trump warned RFK jnr: “Don’t get too popular, Bobby. You know you’ve reached about the level now.”
Trump and Musk may learn that people want government cuts until they find out what they’re losing. But for now, the two men are just a couple of bros with chain saws making googly eyes at each other.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.