Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Elon Musk and Donald Trump were the main characters on the Internet and across Washington day after day. Then the world\u2019s richest man started to fade away.<\/p>\n
On Truth Social, where Trump is known for sharing his unfiltered thoughts, the president used to mention Musk every few days but now has not posted about him in more than a month. Trump\u2019s fundraising operation has largely ceased sending emails that name-check the Tesla CEO. The billionaire\u2019s name, once a staple of White House briefings, now hardly gets mentioned at all. Even members of Congress have essentially dropped him from their newsletters.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a remarkable change for the man who was seemingly everywhere in the early days of the second Trump administration. Musk was in the Oval Office, in Cabinet meetings and on Air Force One. He was at inauguration, then in the House gallery for Trump\u2019s first address to Congress, where Trump praised his hard work. He posed with the president and a row of Teslas on the White House lawn.<\/p>\n
But Musk\u2019s highly visible presence in Washington has ended, a POLITICO analysis found. In Trump\u2019s rapidly evolving second presidency, Musk\u2019s monopoly on political discourse, news coverage and social media seems to have broken \u2014 driven in part by how Trump and Republicans have all but stopped talking about him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI miss him,\u201d said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).<\/p>\n
Musk\u2019s shrinking presence could have political benefits for the GOP. Public polling has revealed him to be increasingly unpopular<\/a> \u2014 far more so than Trump. Early last month, Republicans also lost a major Wisconsin judicial race where Musk had become both a major funder and a campaign issue. And in Washington, the cost-slashing efforts of Musk\u2019s Department of Government Efficiency have continued, but have taken a political back seat to tariffs and the budget fight.<\/p>\n Republicans still speak favorably of Musk when asked about him. And they of course want his massive wealth, army of supporters, and online influence machine backing them in future elections. But while Kennedy argued that Musk stepping back won\u2019t \u201cmake any difference one way or the other\u201d for the midterms, others are starting to say the best way for the tech CEO to help the party might not be on the campaign trail ahead of 2026.<\/p>\n \u201cThose polls on favorability basically tell you Elon’s doing a great job when he’s on the inside,\u201d said David McIntosh, CEO of the conservative Club for Growth. \u201cAnd hopefully he stays a long time to do that, but doesn’t take on this role of a campaign surrogate.\u201d<\/p>\n That could complicate Democrats\u2019 efforts to use Musk as a political foil. They\u2019ve spent months honing strategies, including in the Wisconsin race, to tie the unpopular billionaire to their Republican opponents in battleground contests across the country.<\/p>\n But the Tesla CEO, who has an enormous following on his social media platform X, is unlikely to completely disappear \u2014 and Democrats say they can still use him as a boogeyman. Musk has become such a potent villain on the left that Democrats still expect to invoke him ahead of competitive elections this year in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as in next year\u2019s midterms. And while Republicans are less inclined to put him at the forefront, they\u2019re also not fully backing away from him.<\/p>\n \u201cUltimately, the issue here was never about Elon Musk, it was about Elon Musk-ism,\u201d said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist. \u201cHe wrote their playbook, and it\u2019s not about theoretical blame, it\u2019s about real-world damage that he and Trump have caused that will be litigated all through the midterms.\u201d<\/p>\n The Trump administration\u2019s shift away from Musk has been dramatic online. In February and March, Trump posted about the Tesla CEO an average of roughly four times per week; since the beginning of April, the president hasn\u2019t mentioned Musk once on Truth Social.<\/p>\n Asked about Trump\u2019s declining mentions of Musk, and whether the tech CEO was a political liability, the White House didn\u2019t mention Musk directly.<\/p>\n \u201cThe mission of DOGE \u2014 to cut waste, fraud, and abuse \u2014 will surely continue. DOGE employees who onboarded at their respective agencies will continue to work with President Trump\u2019s cabinet to make our government more efficient,\u201d Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just Trump. The president\u2019s top advisers, as well as official White House accounts, have also largely stopped posting photos and content that mentions Musk.<\/p>\n Trump is also no longer using Musk\u2019s name to bring in money. In February, his fundraising operation invoked Musk in emails to online supporters on a near-daily basis \u2014 a sign that the Tesla CEO was red meat for drumming up donations with the Trump-loving online base. (\u201cI love Elon Musk! The media wants to drive us apart, and it\u2019s not working. He\u2019s great,\u201d read part of one fundraising message, sent February 27.)<\/p>\n But mentions of Musk in fundraising appeals abruptly stopped in early March. Since then, Trump has sent only one fundraising message mentioning Musk \u2014 a May email touting a \u201cGulf of America\u201d hat that the Tesla CEO tried on.<\/p>\n As Musk\u2019s role in the White House has publicly faded, he\u2019s generating less Google search traffic and getting mentioned in the news less. It\u2019s a far cry from the attention he was receiving as a central political figure on the campaign trail and then as the head of the Trump administration\u2019s efforts to slash the federal government.<\/p>\n Some Republicans have come to see Musk as politically toxic, which Democrats have been trying to leverage. First, there\u2019s the polling: voters tend to view Musk far less favorably<\/a> than Trump. Compared to a few months ago, the Tesla CEO\u2019s approval rating has dropped across most groups<\/a>, including independents and voters without college degrees.<\/p>\n Polling from Navigator Research earlier this spring found that DOGE\u2019s work becomes less popular when tied to Musk, and polling from Data for Progress in late April found most voters wanted Musk out of government<\/a> at the end of his 130-day period as a special employee that\u2019s set to expire at the end of in May \u2014 or even sooner.<\/p>\n \u201cThe public supported the effort to end wasteful Washington spending, but they did not support the way that it was done,\u201d said GOP pollster Frank Luntz. \u201cHis mission to cut the waste from Washington was certainly helpful, but the language he used wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.), a top Trump ally, said Musk is a \u201cpatriot\u201d and that \u201che\u2019s really trying to give up his time and do a lot of good.\u201d But he acknowledged that the DOGE chief has ruffled feathers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe got too close to the fence. We mowed too far,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just adjust. That\u2019s the process that\u2019s going on.\u201d<\/p>\n In Wisconsin, Democrats put Musk at the forefront of the state Supreme Court election in April, aided by the fact that the Tesla CEO was a major donor backing the conservative candidate and showed up to campaign in the state. The race became a referendum on not just the broader Trump administration but on Musk specifically. And Judge Susan Crawford \u2014 the liberal candidate who ran an ad accusing Musk of trying to \u201cbuy\u201d a seat on the court \u2014 won by 10 points in a state Trump had narrowly carried last November.<\/p>\n “He\u2019s finished, done, gone. He polls terrible. People hate him,\u201d said a GOP operative who was granted anonymity to speak frankly. \u201cHe’d go to Wisconsin thinking he can buy people’s votes, wear the cheese hat, act like a 9-year-old. … It doesn’t work. It’s offensive to people.”<\/p>\n In addition to potential political concerns, part of Musk\u2019s shift out of the spotlight reflects the rapidly changing issue priorities over the early months of Trump\u2019s presidency. In the first few months, DOGE\u2019s cuts were top of mind. And while those efforts continue, they have also given up some of the spotlight to other Trump initiatives, including his market-rocking tariffs and controversial deportations.<\/p>\n So while Musk\u2019s public profile has declined, that does not mean he lacks access or influence. Just last week, he was among the tech CEOs to join Trump in Saudi Arabia, shaking hands with the nation\u2019s leaders and speaking at an investment forum<\/a>.<\/p>\n And DOGE\u2019s aggressive cost-cutting efforts, led by a staff Musk brought in, are expected to continue even after he formally leaves his role as a special government employee. Both Republicans and Democrats also widely expect the tech billionaire, who poured $290 million of his own money into the 2024 elections, to continue to be a major political player.<\/p>\n That\u2019s one reason why Democrats say they aren\u2019t fretting. Musk remains a foil for Democrats to highlight, but in the context of Trump and Republicans who have enabled him, said CJ Warnke, spokesperson for House Majority PAC, Democrats\u2019 super PAC for congressional races. The issues that have replaced Musk as a dominating issue in news, such as potential Medicaid cuts and tariffs, are still good for Democrats to run on, he said.<\/p>\n In Wisconsin\u2019s Supreme Court race, several ads backing Crawford focused primarily or entirely on Musk, and for a while Democrats would sometimes mention Musk \u2014 but not Trump \u2014 on social media and in statements.<\/p>\n The Tesla CEO is still being regularly name-dropped in Democratic congressional candidates\u2019 announcements from Pennsylvania<\/a> to Illinois<\/a> and California<\/a>, in both safe and swing districts. And of the six Democrats running in New Jersey\u2019s June 10 gubernatorial primary, four have named Musk in TV ads.<\/p>\n But recent ads tend to avoid making Musk the main villain. As ads blanket New Jersey in the final weeks of the race, the spots mentioning Musk usually put him side by side with Trump. A few give him glancing mentions or a quick flash on screen \u2014 not the main character.<\/p>\n