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Elon Musk blasts Trump aide in dinner blow-up over Cabinet at Mar-a-Lago as MAGA golden boy is targeted Details here
For a while, Donald Trump’s transition kept up a record-setting pace with top Cabinet picks being named against a backdrop of calm consensus.
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But the knives are now out, with advisers leaking against each other to the press amid the scramble to parachute allies into plum jobs.
‘Winning helped make everything better for a bit but this is still politics and there are always scores to settle and axes to grind,’ said a source familiar with the workings of Trump’s inner circle.
In the most widely publicized example, Axios was tipped that Tesla founder Elon Musk and Trump legal adviser Boris Epshteyn had a ‘major blowup’ during dinner at Mar-a-Lago last week.
The report claimed Musk bristled at Epshteyn’s influence on Cabinet picks and accused him of leaking details to the media, charges he vociferously denied.
At the same time, Musk’s new role as ‘first buddy’ to Trump, has irked others in the circle who hope that he soon falls out of favor with a boss who likes there to be only one center of attention.
A transition source played down the story, saying Epshteyn and Musk had a good relationship and had dined frequently at the same table.
Even so it comes as other Trump loyalists express irritation at Musk’s growing influence as well as his public comments on appointments and policy.
At the same time, other advisers are gunning for Epshteyn who was seen as a key player in promoting Matt Gaetz for attorney general.
Epshteyn assembled Trump’s legal team for his New York criminal case, and two of those lawyers, Todd Blanche and Emile Bove, have landed top Justice Department positions.
The result is a bitter wave of briefing against him, with some insiders claiming he has too much influence and is on the way out for the circle.