As President Donald Trump convenes his first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, the intrigue will be on Elon Musk, who wields far more power than his mere White House adviser title denotes.
While the billionaire businessman isn’t a Cabinet member, Trump has publicly embraced Musk and his brainchild, the Department of Government Efficiency, even as the administration works to put daylight between him and Trump in court filings.
Musk is technically a special government employee and not the DOGE administrator, but whatever his role, he’s sucked up media coverage over the past month — sometimes to the chagrin of White House officials.
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“F***ing Elon,” one aide in the White House’s press shop was overheard grumbling as the team watched a reporter ask a Musk-related question of Attorney General Pam Bondi’s during her first press conference earlier this month.
Musk’s presence in Washington, and his proximity to the Oval Office, has also driven a rift through Republican political operatives. One camp believes the president is effectively using Musk as a “shield” or a “lightning rod” to draw the media’s attention amid the administration’s quest to shrink the federal bureaucracy and slash alleged wasteful or fraudulent spending. The other camp, however, believes that Musk’s time in the spotlight is souring his relationship with the president.
“I think it’s already an issue. It becomes a question of whether Trump has any power,” one GOP strategist told the Washington Examiner following Musk and Trump’s impromptu Oval Office press conference earlier this month. “I just don’t know how Trump gets rid of him.”
Musk’s elevated status has lead to myriad jabs from the president’s critics, including “President Musk” or the “shadow president.” Trump did his first joint interview with him rather than Vice President JD Vance, and Musk himself has put himself at odds with members of Trump’s Cabinet that he’ll join on Wednesday for the meeting.
Trump is set to deliver a speech before a joint session of Congress next week, and it appears he’ll use Wednesday’s White House gathering as an opportunity to underscore his accomplishments a month into office. Though Trump set a historic pace at which he has appointed and confirmed the near totality of his Cabinet, a point White House officials have repeatedly stressed in recent days, DOGE continues to be the big story in Washington, including the “What did you do last week?” emails Musk and his staff sent over the weekend to federal employees in addition to Musk’s actual role and responsibilities within the federal government.
Wednesday’s meeting will be the public’s first opportunity to witness firsthand how the already confirmed Cabinet secretaries or Cabinet-level department heads interact and engage with Musk after many of them pushed back on his escalating requirements of federal workers to maintain employment.
Some agency heads ordered their respective workforces not to respond to DOGE’s five tasks emails, with several confusing and conflicting statements following from the White House itself.
The first public pushback came from FBI Director Kash Patel, only confirmed last Thursday, who told his employees to “please pause any responses.”
“The FBI, through the Office of the Director, is in charge of all of our review processes, and will conduct reviews in accordance with FBI procedures,” Patel wrote. “When and if further information is required, we will coordinate the responses.”
Patel’s message preceded similar notes from the likes of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio.
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“I think it’s better because it’s deeper,” Trump told reporters Tuesday during an executive order signing in the White House’s Oval Office when asked to compare his first and second Cabinets. “I had some people that I didn’t really like too much in my Cabinet, but I didn’t know Washington. I was a New York person. I knew New York intimately, but I had to rely on people.”
He added, “Look, we got the biggest tax cuts in history. I rebuilt the military. And we did so much.”
In the days since the initial Musk email, the White House has been repeatedly pressed for clarity on the issue, which in turn has thrust the uncertainty surrounding DOGE’s leadership under a political microscope.
Last week, the administration argued in court that Musk is only a “senior adviser” to Trump with “no greater authority than other senior White House advisors.” As a special government employee, Musk can only work for the government for a short period of time, but does not need to disclose his conflicts of interest and is instead self-reporting them to Trump.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt could not confirm the name of DOGE’s administrator during Tuesday’s briefing, but an official later told the Washington Examiner first that Amy Gleason was heading the agency in an acting capacity.
Leavitt used the briefing to contend it was not difficult for federal employees to respond to the email, revealing 1 million people have done so so far, including herself, as other recipients reiterate they should not be fired for failing to reply.
Both the press secretary and the president backed Musk Monday amid speculation of tension between DOGE and the Cabinet.
“Let me be very clear: The president and Elon and the entire Cabinet are working as one unified team, and they are implementing this very competently,” she said.
And Trump, during an Oval Office signing ceremony, signed off yet again on Musk’s five things emails from days prior.
“It’s somewhat voluntary, but it’s also, if you don’t answer, I guess you get fired,” he told reporters. “If people are working, it’s easy. I can tell you five things I did last — I could tell you five things I did six weeks ago, right? If they’re there, and they we’re working, they’re able to say they did five things during work.”
Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting is the first of Trump’s second administration after convening 25 such sitdowns during his first term. The meetings were regularly portrayed as televised loyalty tests during which Cabinet officials profusely praised the president.
At the same time, Trump’s Cabinet during his first administration experienced historic turnover. During those four years, Trump had 15 Cabinet officials resign voluntarily or under pressure, the most during the first term of any of the past four administrations.
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The Senate has confirmed Trump’s Cabinet for his second administration at a similarly historic pace, with 18 confirmations in 31 days. Patel’s confirmation on Thursday came after a majority in the chamber voted for Secretary of Commence Howard Lutnick and Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler on Wednesday.
Cabinet officials expected to be in attendance at Wednesday’s meeting include Lutnick, Loeffler, Rubio, Hegseth, Bondi, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Housing and Urban Development Secretary Scott Turner, Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Veterans Affairs Doug Collins, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin, Office of Management and Budget Administrator Russell Vought, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, CIA Director John Ratcliffe, and chief of staff Susie Wiles.