Ex-Aide Confronted On Fox News About Reports Trump Is ‘Annoyed’ Over Elon Musk

Donald Trump’s former White House deputy press secretary was asked on Fox News on Monday about reports that the president-elect is getting fed up with all the attention Elon Musk is attracting.

Earlier, Mediaite had reported, citing sources close to the Trump transition, that the president-elect is tiring of his billionaire ally’s omnipresence. “100 percent Trump is annoyed,” a Trump insider told the site. “There’s a Chinese saying: ‘two tigers cannot live on one mountaintop.’”

Fox News chief correspondent Jonathan Hunt asked Hogan Gidley, who was also national press secretary of Trump’s 2020 campaign, about reports that the president-elect “might be getting slightly annoyed” and “getting a little tired” of the attention that Musk commands via his social media platform X.

“Oh, look, it’s obvious that Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and others have good relationships with Donald Trump,” Gidley pushed back. “The media like to stir things up and try and create rifts where there aren’t any rifts.”

“Donald Trump has tasked Elon Musk with a big job, and that’s finding a lot of the fraud, waste, and abuse in the federal government. We think he can absolutely accomplish that,” he added.

“Donald Trump’s the leader here,” he insisted. “He’s got the team around him to do it, and they’re all his friends. They’re all working together.”

Trump has appointed Musk and Ramaswamy, a wealthy entrepreneur and former Republican primary rival, to lead the new non-official Department of Government Efficiency that’s supposed to slash public spending.

Musk, who spent more than $200 million to help elect Trump, has dominated headlines since the election and exerted enormous influence, leading to speculation and mockery that he is Trump’s “co-president” or “shadow president.”

Trump addressed that commentary earlier this month, calling the accusation a “hoax” and saying “that’s not happening.”