Donald Trump, it seems, has adopted Elon Musk. The Tesla C.E.O. appeared frequently at campaign events and since election night has made Mar-a-Lago his home away from home. He and his mother, Maye, even joined the Trumps for Thanksgiving dinner. So ubiquitous has the self-described “first buddy” become in the Palm Beach White House that Trump has been telling anyone who will listen that he “can’t get him out of here.” In a photo of the Trumps posted to X last month, captioned “The whole squad,” there’s Musk.
Just two years ago, Musk endorsed Ron DeSantis for president. But this summer he fell hard for Trump and, in the months that followed, reportedly spent more than $250 million to help his campaign. Clearly, Trump has a lot to gain from Musk. And Musk certainly has a lot to gain from a close relationship with Trump.
Having already been appointed government-efficiency czar, alongside Vivek Ramaswamy, Musk stands to win big from government contracts for satellite launches by his company SpaceX. Trump’s campaign pledges to lower corporate and personal income taxes will also benefit Musk, as would shifts in subsidies and regulations for electric and autonomous vehicles—markets Musk dominates through Tesla. Musk has also bemoaned alleged F.D.A. foot-dragging to approve human testing of his Neuralink brain chips, which could be fast-tracked under Trump. That $250 million may have been a wise investment.
But an examination of the dynamics within the two men’s extended families suggests that they are drawn to each other out of more than just self-interest. What appears at first to be a bromance may in fact be an idealized father-son relationship.
He may be the world’s richest man, but not even Musk’s billions can fix his broken family. His father, Errol, with whom he’s long had a difficult relationship, lives in Musk’s native South Africa, estranged from his son, who wants little to do with him. Musk’s first wife, Justine, bore him six children before a messy divorce complete with a contested pre-nup.
His transgender daughter, Vivian, meanwhile, has publicly called her father “cold” and “narcissistic.” Vivian even renounced the Musk surname in 2022, taking her mother’s maiden name, Wilson. Musk later declared his “son” was “dead, killed by the woke mind virus.” With some 12 children by three different mothers, he keeps on spawning—doing his part to prevent “population collapse,” he says. Or maybe he is trying to increase the odds of having a good relationship with his kids.
What men like Musk need most in life is loyalty—unconditional fealty and allegiance. And while Trump is loyal to no one, his family is unfailingly loyal to him. Despite the infamous Marla-Ivana ordeal decades ago, there are no ex-wife tell-alls, no disobedient gender rebels in Trump World. Instead, there’s 17-year-old Kai Madison Trump, the president-elect’s picture-perfect granddaughter, who bonded recently with Musk at a SpaceX launch in Texas. Trump’s children and their spouses are either on the payroll or acting as de facto representatives of the family brand. This is a clan that stays on message.
Much like the Kardashians, the Trumps are unreservedly public-facing, with little pretense for privacy. And as with the Kardashians, their foibles are very well known. This is partly why, though rich and privileged, neither the Kardashians nor the Trumps read entirely “elite,” somehow managing to feel populist even with the mansions and the private jets. Even Caitlyn Jenner, America’s best-known trans woman, is a Trump supporter.
While Trump is loyal to no one, his family is unfailingly loyal to him. Despite the infamous Marla-Ivana ordeal decades ago, there are no ex-wife tell-alls, no disobedient gender rebels.
This is why Musk won’t leave Trump’s side. Trump offers Musk a sense of safety, the company of an extended family in thrall to an unquestioned patriarch. In Trump, Musk has found a chance to impress, to show off, to feel proud—affirmed and acknowledged by an avuncular older man whose approval he craves. This is why that SpaceX launch was a success, even if the rocket failed. Trump was dazzled, proud of Musk as Errol never was.
As for Trump, he gets in Musk an ideal son—notwithstanding the three he already has. Eric and Don Jr. are not failures, but they’ve excelled—like their sister Ivanka—within their father’s orbit. There’s nothing innovative or entrepreneurial about Trump’s adult sons. Musk, however, is not merely far wealthier than Trump, he’s a bona fide maverick—just a few years older than Don Jr. and Eric but immeasurably more accomplished and influential.
Perhaps this is why Trump lavished similar levels of love on son-in-law Jared Kushner during his first administration. Like Trump, and Trump’s sons, Kushner was born into a wealthy real-estate dynasty. But his willingness to make big gambles (however they turned out) more closely resembles Trump than Don Jr. and Eric’s dutiful toadying. Kushner was slavishly loyal to Trump, which certainly didn’t hurt. But his determination to avenge the criminal conviction of his father, Charles Kushner, may have appealed to Trump even more. (Trump pardoned Charles Kushner and recently nominated him to be America’s ambassador to France.)
Trump, needless to say, is notoriously prickly and fickle, so who knows where Musk will stand at the end of Trump’s second term—or even on Inauguration Day, seven weeks from now. Musk is clearly jockeying to remain by Trump’s side for as long as Trump World allows him to. In the meantime, both men’s dad-and-son cosplay is satisfying a need they never knew they had.
David Christopher Kaufman is an editor and columnist at the New York Post, a regular opinion writer for The Telegraph, and an adjunct fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute
