Expert: Focus on Elon Musk as Million-Dollar Question, Matt Gaetz Still in Trump Administration Following AG Drop-Out

DONALD Trump will find a space in his administration for “kindred spirit” Matt Gaetz, but his relationship with Elon Musk is the “million dollar question,” a geopolitical expert has said.

As Trump’s second-term cabinet begins to take shape, an expert has revealed what we can expect that team to look like.

Last week, Gaetz, who has been accused of sleeping with a 17-year-old girl and paying her to attend sex parties, stepped down as Trump’s pick for attorney general.

The former Florida representative denies any wrongdoing but said he had become a distraction to the president-elect’s team.

But despite his replacement by Pam Bondi, a former Florida attorney general, Randall Schmollinger, a geopolitics expert from Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs in New York, has said he believes Trump will find a role for Gaetz.

“Matt Gaetz has been an ardent Trump supporter from the very start,” he told The U.S. Sun.

“He’s been a standard bearer for the MAGA movement, and I think he’s unlikely to go away.”

Schmollinger added that he believes Trump will grant Gaetz “some role in that administration, whether in an official capacity, or whether he’ll just be someone the president can call upon when he needs advice.”

Gaetz’s return to politics is complicated by the fact that he resigned his seat in the House of Representatives.

But Schmollinger explained that Trump will likely call upon Gaetz’s ability to “drive people’s attention,” a characteristic he shares with the Republican.

“They are kindred spirits in that way,” he added.

A QUESTION MARK AROUND ELON MUSK

Increasing attention has been paid to Trump’s relationship with X and Tesla boss Elon Musk, who has been one of the president-elect’s top backers.

Billionaire Musk has been tasked with heading up Trump’s new Department of Government Efficiency (also known as DOGE – in reference to the Musk-backed cryptocurrency Dogecoin).

In a statement shortly after his election victory earlier in November, Trump said Musk and former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy would “dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies.”

What influence this will give Musk within the Trump administration still remains to be seen, but Schmollinger believes that relationship will be a defining part of his second term.

“That is the one-million-dollar question,” he said.

“Obviously, a lot can happen in the next four years, and they are both big personalities, but I think what we’ve seen from both of them and what they both recognize in one another, is a certain X-factor, a certain tendency to surprise and to think outside the box about what is going to happen and where they see things going.

“Musk has a very well-defined vision in his mind of where he sees American humanity going in the future, and I think Trump is very much the opposite,” he said.

“He picks a direction and goes that way without much clarity about where it is he’s going, so they actually complement each other.”

Schmollinger added that Musk could bring a “clarifying vision” to Trump’s more instinctive style of governance.

But that prediction came with a warning.

“Both Musk and Trump are going to do whatever they think is best for themselves,” he said.

“I worry that Musk getting too close to the regulatory environment does give him too much control over the business landscape.”

Still, Schmollinger pointed to Musk’s leadership in the growth of electric vehicles, as well as his takeover of Twitter, as signs that he can use his influence to shape the political agenda under Trump.

Musk told a Trump rally in October that he believes the US government budget can be slashed from its current $6.5 trillion by “at least” $2 trillion.

He has also called for some 75% of government employees to be made redundant.

However, Schmollinger added that he believes the 75% figure is potentially an exaggeration.

He said that both Musk and Trump have a tendency to make bold, over-ambitious claims as part of a “public-facing persona,” but to be more open to compromise behind the scenes.

That being said, Schmollinger added that a drastic act from Musk’s DOGE agency should not be ruled out.

“We’ve seen him do that with Twitter before where he got in there and cut 75% of the workforce and still had a functional app,” he said.

“But Musk doesn’t know what it is to have a government agency and what it is to work within Washington.

“I don’t think that he is going to cut 75% of the government overnight.”