Maggie Haberman Calls Out Trump for Blockbuster Elon Musk Cash Dump: He’d Be ‘Very Upset’ If a Democrat Did It

CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman called President Donald Trump out over Elon Musk’s impending cash dump into Trump’s political operation — which she says Trump would be “very upset” about if a Democrat did it.

A new report from Haberman and Theodore Schleifer revealed that Musk is set to donate $100 million to Trump-aligned political organizations. The scoop dropped shortly after Trump and Musk held a thinly veiled photo op to promote Tesla vehicles, using the White House as a backdrop.

Musk spent nearly $300 million during the 2024 campaign to aid Trump’s winning bid for the White House.

On Thursday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Haberman gave host Anderson Cooper her insights on the news, and pointedly noted that even Trump would find it unusual under different circumstances:

ANDERSON COOPER: We have breaking news on the same day that Tesla sales event in the White House. New reporting from “The New York Times” and what the President’s political operation may be getting from Elon Musk. Maggie Haberman joins us now with this breaking story. Maggie, what have you learned?

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST (via phone): So. Anderson, Teddy Schleifer and I reported that Elon Musk has signaled to Trump’s advisers that he wants to direct $100 million into Trump controlled political entities. Now, that’s different than what he has done in the past.

In the past, he has funded a lot of political support for Donald Trump. You know, I believe more than $300 million in the past through his own PAC called America PAC. This would be something very different. It would be giving it to entities that are controlled by the Trump team and it would be a different kind of approach.

Now, all of this is happening. This has been being discussed over the last several days. The backdrop is, you know, obviously that very contentious Cabinet meeting last week. Musk also was at Mar-a-Lago all weekend. He traveled on Air Force One with the president.

And then today, as you say, there was this display of several Tesla cars at a time when not just is Tesla getting violent protests, but its stock is falling. So that is the context in part.

COOPER: So is this — I mean, how should this be — how might somebody look at this? Is this Elon Musk worrying about his position vis-a-vis Trump after that contentious meeting, which you and your colleagues reported on and broke that story? And this is a way to influence that or ensure that?

HABERMAN: It absolutely helped solidify his position with Donald Trump. The precise impetus was not clear to us, although the timing does appear to be around last week. Also notable last week, Anderson, America PAC started airing a $1 million ad buy saying, thank you, President Trump.

So Musk has some sense of how to work with this president and what exactly he wants. But in terms of the broader question, there’s just never been a situation where you have a part-time employee to the government working inside the White House complex and also making this kind of a donation to a president’s political apparatus.

It’s unprecedented. It is also the kind of thing that, you know, I suspect that Donald Trump would have gotten very upset about had a Democrat done it.

Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.