Maggie Haberman: Trump White House ‘Never Quite Recovered’ From Elon Musk

The New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman said President Donald Trump’s second administration “never quite recovered” from Elon Musk’s involvement during the early months of the president’s second stint in the White House.

Haberman made the claim during an interview on MS NOW’s Morning Joe on Friday. She was on the show alongside her fellow NYT reporter and co-author Jonathan Swan, as the two promoted their new book Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.

“You had Elon Musk — and we get into this in great detail [in the book] — essentially serving not as a co-president, but as a co-president for parts of the first four months or so,” Haberman said. “And that created so much destabilization of this government that I think they also never quite recovered.”

Haberman did not go into more detail on that, adding it was a topic for “another time.”

But the Tesla and SpaceX boss came up again a minute later. Swan said Musk enjoyed watching his tech rivals Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg “sucking up” to Trump.

He said Musk joked to Trump about their “first-class groveling,” which included Bezos and his wife Lauren Sanchez sending a selfie to Trump and thanking him for dinner, and Zuckerberg sending a letter to the president where one of his kids praised the “golden age of America.”

The Trump-Musk relationship was big news in the early days of the president’s second administration, with Musk spearheading the new Department of Government Efficiency.

Musk and Trump appeared to be old pals during an interview with Sean Hannity in February 2025, but things turned sour a few months later when Musk left the administration and accused the president of not releasing more files on Jeffrey Epstein because Trump “is in the Epstein files.” 

In the months before, Tesla’s stock took a big hit — something Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) celebrated — and Teslas were vandalized from coast-to-coast because of Musk’s ties to the Trump administration.

Trump and Musk seem to be getting along better again, though, after publicly reuniting at the Charlie Kirk memorial service last September.

As for Haberman and Swan, they’ve been making the media rounds to promote their new book. You can read more juicy details from it by clicking here.

Watch above.

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