The meeting was a potential turning point after the frenetic first weeks of #Trump’s 2nd term. It yielded the first significant indication that Trump is willing to put some limits on #Musk, whose efforts have become the subject of several lawsuits & prompted concerns from #Republican lawmakers, some of whom have complained directly to Trump.

Throughout all of this, #Trump sat back in his chair, arms folded, as if he were watching a tennis match.

After the argument dragged on for an uncomfortable time, Trump finally intervened to defend #Rubio as doing a “great job.” Rubio has a lot to deal with, he said. “He is very busy, he is always traveling & on TV, & he has an agency to run. So everyone just needs to work together.”

#MarcoRubio had been privately furious w/ #Musk for weeks, ever since his team effectively shuttered an entire agency that was supposedly under #Rubio’s control: the #USAID. But, in the extraordinary #cabinet meeting in front of #Trump & around 20 others — details of which have not been reported before — Rubio got his grievances off his chest.

The Millers had worked w/ #Musk in between #Trump’s terms, helping to guide his political spending behind the scenes. After the election, they became even more essential in helping him decode & navigate Trump’s world.

Musk also absorbed as much as he could about the budget process & the bureaucracy that he intended to dismantle from #RussVought, who served as dir of the powerful #OMB in Trump’s first term.

The operation would take over the #USDS, which had been housed within the #OMB [#RussVought], & would become a stand-alone entity in the executive office of the president. #Musk would NOT be named the #DOGE administrator, but rather an *adviser* to #Trump….

An advantage of this complicated structure was #secrecy. For all his talk about “#transparency,” Musk was obsessed w/confidentiality & fearful of #leaks.

#Musk was also intent on getting access to federal #data & payment systems. He felt that if he could not, the whole endeavor would be a waste of his time.

Several people involved in the talks were familiar w/the #USDS, including Smith, who had worked w/the unit on a Covid database as a snr ofcl in the first #Trump admin…

Eventually, Musk’s team settled on a plan but kept it a secret for weeks, even blindsiding some people working w/him.

They discussed the likelihood of #litigation & welcomed the idea that #Democrats would sue. They liked their chances with a #SCOTUS that #Trump had transformed in his first term, with a majority that now favored an expansive vision of #ExecutivePower.…

Trump had announced #DOGE on Nov 12 as an entity outside of govt, but #Musk quickly began to see problems with that — including the fact that it could be subject to #PublicRecord rules.

The group at Mar-a-Lago brainstormed ways to terminate #FederalWorkers. One idea was to motivate them to quit, by forcing them to return to the office 5 days a week or, as #Ramaswamy suggested, moving #CivilServants to work on admin priorities like border security. Ramaswamy predicted to the team that many federal workers would not want to be part of an #immigration crackdown & would leave govt — a win-win situation.

…In one early meeting, #Musk said Smith was being too careful & offering “classic consultant stuff.” In discussions, Musk expressed impatience w/Smith’s caution that the team would need a phalanx of lawyers to help w/ #ExecutiveOrders & #regulations. Musk wanted to tear down the government to the studs, & saw Smith’s approach as incremental.

The group included #Musk; #Ramaswamy, who was then #DOGE’s co-leader; the #billionaire #HowardLutnick, who was running #Trump’s transition & would become his #commerce secy; & a health care entrepreneur, Brad Smith, who had worked w/Trump’s son-in-law #JaredKushner…. [but more importantly] Smith was a close business associate of #AmyGleason, who had worked at one of his companies as a chief product officer.

…#Musk was elated by #Trump’s win, but he had done virtually no preparation for his new initiative. 2 days after the election, on Nov 7, Musk was…at Mar-a-Lago….He would spend much of the next 2 months there, staying at a $2,000-a-night cottage on the property.

In the days & weeks that followed, a tight circle began planning how to swiftly upend the bureaucracy, starting essentially from scratch.

But #Musk also quickly seeded the idea w/ #Trump that he could be more than just a campaign donor.

…By Sept 5, the [#DOGE] idea was announced as a central pillar of Trump’s economic proposals. In a speech at the Economic Club of NY, Trump …said he would create a government efficiency commission helmed by Musk. The effort, which Trump offered few details about at the time, would “save trillions of dollars,” he claimed.

At 3 pro-#Trump dinners organized by #Musk & the #billionaire investor #NelsonPeltz over the course of 2024, Musk touted the need for a smaller government but struggled to offer specific ideas.

At the time, he was infuriated by #Biden & what he saw as deliberate efforts by the admin to harm his businesses #Tesla & #SpaceX.

…In the months that followed, he would plow almost $300M into efforts to re-elect Trump.