'Staff is annoyed': Dissent reported inside White House as key Trump ally ruffles feathers
The first week of Donald Trump's second presidency played out without the palace intrigue that disrupted the start of his first term — but a report claimed there's discontent brewing among his staffers and allies.
Billionaires have been parading through the Oval Office to meet with the newly inaugurated president, but tech mogul Elon Musk remains a dominant force in the White House from which he claims to be working, although Trump has denied that he has an office there.
The influence of the world's richest man has ruffled some feathers, reported NOTUS.
“Feelings toward Elon are kind of mixed,” said a source familiar with conversations. “Staff is annoyed, but what is there to do about it?”
Musk has been pushing for an office in the West Wing to bring him closer to the president, who shrugged off Musk's public criticism of a deal with his nemesis Sam Altman and other tech CEOs on artificial intelligence, and while some White House officials say he has played a prominent role in staffing recommendations, other Trump allies question his influence.
“He does have influence, but he doesn’t have power,” said right-wing influencer Steve Bannon, who served as Trump's chief strategist early in his first term. “He doesn’t have the ability to really make a decision. He really doesn’t even have the power to even muscle guys into position. So right now, his power will come from the influence that he makes on this DOGE.”
White House communications director Stephen Cheung denied tensions involving Musk, saying sources who say otherwise "simply have no idea what they are talking about because they aren’t in the room," and he also knocked down complaints about the glacial pace of filling the federal government's 4,000 political appointments.
“Everything is going according to plan," he told NOTUS in a statement. "The President and his entire Administration have been focused on implementing his America First agenda and working for the American people."
The White House says it has filled 1,300 of the 4,000 roles available across the government, but some Republicans said hiring was off to a slow start due to rigid loyalty requirements and the transition team’s late agreement on background checks with the FBI, and campaign aides and others who believed they'd been promised jobs still don't know what's going on.
“That has been really frustrating for some people, especially for those who’ve already moved here and are still awaiting instructions or direction as to what they’ll actually be doing,” said one GOP official. “They’ve given themselves a pretty gratuitous timeline though, until March, to fill the remaining positions that are available.”