Space X rocket Starship thundered towards space, but on earth, eyes were turned towards something else. Space X founder Elon Musk, the world's richest man, was hugged by his friend Donald Trump in the control room in Boca Chica, Texas.
A star is born: Elon, said Trump about his buddy on TV after the presidential election victory about two weeks ago.
New Uncle?
After the election, the two have been inseparable. The entrepreneur, who is also the CEO of Tesla and owns the social media platform X, and his four-year-old son have more or less moved into Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida. Trump, who loves the spotlight, has (maybe not just jokingly) declared that he "can't seem to get enough" of Musk.
He has sat in on meetings about ministerial posts, participated in phone calls with foreign leaders, and has traveled and golfed with Trump. He has been invited to family gatherings, and Trump's oldest grandchild has written on social media "Elon gets uncle status".
Musk knows how to handle Trump, notes Mitch Downey, an American and researcher in national economics at Stockholm University.
I think Trump is drawn to the immense power Musk possesses as a brilliant entrepreneur and thinker in areas such as the future and cryptocurrencies. He influences, he is the one who gets young, non-college-educated men to vote for Trump – despite not being Republicans.
Shockwaves Expected
Musk and former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy are to lead the White House unit Doge, which is to streamline the state through mainly cuts.
Musk has promised to "send shockwaves through the system" and claims to be able to save hundreds of billions of dollars, or more, in the state budget.
Nationalekonomen Downey is skeptical.
Presidents on both the right and left have tried without success. 75 percent of the state budget is tied up in social security systems, state health insurance (Medicare and Medicaid), and defense, and is essentially untouchable.
It is clear that Musk will face significant conflicts of interest. Tesla and Space X had contracts with 17 state authorities worth around 3 billion dollars last year, according to The New York Times. Will Musk spare authorities that affect his business interests?
And can the head of the electric car company Tesla cooperate with someone who wants to drill more for oil?
I think Musk has enough money, he cares more about power. Tesla won't go under because the gasoline price drops a bit at home, says Mitch Downey.
Born June 28, 1971, in South Africa. Moved to his mother's homeland Canada at the age of 18 to study. Musk then switched to the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in economics and physics.
In 1995, he moved to California and began his entrepreneurial journey. The first company, started with his brother Kimbal, was bought by Compaq for over 300 million dollars in 1999. The same year, Musk helped start what would later become PayPal. The service was sold to eBay at the end of 2002 for 1.5 billion dollars.
After that, Musk was involved in the startup phase of both Space X and Tesla. With the successes of his entrepreneurial journey, Musk is counted as one of the world's richest people – depending on the economic situation and stock market fluctuations, often as the single richest.
His personal opinions have taken an increasingly prominent place among his posts on X, and Musk has been criticized for being both transphobic and anti-Semitic, and for spreading conspiracy theories and right-wing extremist propaganda.
Elon Musk has eleven living children with three different women. In September, he backed Donald Trump ahead of the US presidential election.
