Elon Musk and Donald Trump were internet protagonists and Washington protagonists every day. Then the wealthiest man in the world began to disappear.
The president would mention Musk every few days, about the true society that Trump is known for sharing his unfiltered ideas, but now he hasn’t posted about him for more than a month. Trump’s fundraiser largely stopped sending emails to Tesla CEOs confirming their name. The billionaire’s name was once a staple at White House briefings, but is now rarely mentioned. Even members of Congress essentially dropped him from their newsletter.
That’s a noticeable change for a man who appears to be everywhere in the early days of the second Trump administration. Musk was in the oval office, in the Cabinet meeting and in the Air Force 1. He was at the House Gallery at the inauguration ceremony and to Trump’s first speech to Congress. He posed with the president and Teslas line on the White House lawn.
However, the highly visible presence of masks in Washington has ended, political analysis found. It appears that Musk’s monopoly over political discourse, news coverage and social media has been broken in Trump’s rapidly evolving second presidency. This was driven in part by how Trump and Republicans stopped talking about him.
“I miss him,” Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) said.
The reduced presence of musk could have political benefits for the GOP. Public votes made him clear that he was increasingly unpopular. Earlier last month, Republicans lost a major Wisconsin judicial race where masks became both a major funder and a campaign issue. And in Washington, efforts to destroy the cost of masks’ government efficiency continue to occupy the political backseat in the battle of tariffs and budgets.
Republicans still speak well of Musk when asked about him. And they are of course affecting his massive wealth, his supporters’ army, and online, and the machines that support them in future elections. However, Kennedy argued that treading musk “doesn’t make any difference” in the mid-term, while others have begun saying the best ways to help the party for high-tech CEOs who may not be following the campaign trajectory before 2026.
“These favor polls basically say Elon does a great job when he’s inside,” said David McIntosh, CEO of the Conservative Growth Club. “And hopefully he will stay for a long time to do it, but will not take on this role as a proxy for the campaign.”
That could complicate the Democrats’ efforts to use masks as political foil. They spent months on strategies that included a Wisconsin race, tying together billionaires who were unpopular with Republican opponents in battlefield contests across the country.
However, Tesla CEOs who have a big following on social media platform X are unlikely to disappear completely. And Democrats say he can still be used as a boogieman. Musk will become a very powerful villain on the left, hoping that he will still call him in this year’s competitive elections in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as in the midterm next year. And while Republicans don’t tend to put him at the forefront, they haven’t completely retreated from him.
“In the end, the issue here wasn’t about Elon Musk, it was about Elon Muskism,” said Democrat strategist Jesse Ferguson. “He wrote their playbook, but it’s not about theoretical responsibility. It’s about the real world damage he and Trump caused, which will sue them throughout the medium term.”
The Trump administration’s shift from masks was dramatic online. In February and March, Trump averaged about four posts per week about Tesla CEOs. Since the beginning of April, the president has never mentioned Musk in a true society.
Asked about the decline in Trump’s musk references and whether the high-tech CEO was politically responsible, the White House did not directly mention the mask.
“Doge’s mission to reduce waste, fraud and abuse certainly continues. Doge employees mounted on each agency will continue to work with President Trump’s ministers to make the government more efficient,” Trump’s news chief Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
It’s not just Trump. The president’s top advisors and official White House accounts have largely stopped posting photos and content referencing masks.
Trump is also no longer bringing in money using the mask’s name. In February, his fundraiser called masks to online supporters via email on a nearly day-to-day basis. This is a sign that Tesla CEOs are lean meat for donations with Trump-loving online base. (“I love Elon Musk! The media wants to separate us. It’s not working. He’s great,” read some of the fundraising messages sent on February 27th.
However, Musk’s mention of the fundraising appeal suddenly stopped in early March. Since then, Trump has sent only one fundraising message referring to masks. They may promote the “American Bay” hats that Tesla CEO has tried.
As Mask’s role in the White House is openly declining, he generates less Google search traffic and is not mentioned in the news. That’s far from the attention he received as a central political figure in the campaign trajectory, and as head of the Trump administration’s efforts to cut the federal government.
Some Republicans have come to be seen as politically toxic that Democrats are trying to capitalize on. First of all, there is a vote. Voters tend to be less favorable to musk than Trump. Compared to several months ago, Tesla CEO approval rates have declined in most groups, including independents and voters without university degrees.
A poll from the Navigator study earlier this spring found that doge’s job was less popular when tied to masks, and most voters were found by voting from data for progress in late April. I wanted musk from the government At the end of May, or even earlier, at the end of a 130-day period as a special employee set to expire.
“The public supported efforts to end the wasted Washington spending, but they did not support the way it was done,” GOP Pollster Frank Luntz said. “His mission to reduce waste from Washington certainly helped, but the language he used wasn’t.”
Sen. Jim Justice (RW.V.), a top Trump alliance, said Musk is a “patriot” and “he’s really giving up on time and trying to do a lot of good things.” However, he admitted that the chief of Doge had disturbed his feathers.
“We were getting too close to the fence. We were mowing too much,” he said. “We just need to adjust it. That’s the ongoing process.”
In Wisconsin, Democrats put masks at the forefront of the state’s Supreme Court election in April. It was supported by the fact that Tesla’s CEO was a leading donor in favor of conservative candidates and showed up in a campaign in the state. The race became a referendum on the broader Trump administration, and specifically the Musk. And Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate who ran an ad accusing Musk of trying to “buy” a court seat, earning 10 points in the state Trump carried slightly last November.
“He’s finished, finished, he’s gone. He’s a terrible vote. People hate him,” said the GOP operative, who was given anonymity to speak openly. “He thought he could go to Wisconsin and buy people’s votes and act like a nine-year-old wearing a cheese hat. …It doesn’t work. It’s offensive to people.”
In addition to potential political concerns, some of the shift from the mask spotlight reflects the priorities of President Trump’s rapidly changing issues over the early months. In the first few months, Doge’s cut was amazing. And while those efforts continued, they also gave the spotlight to other Trump initiatives, including tariffs and controversial deportations that rocked his market.
So, while Musk’s public profile is declining, that doesn’t mean he lacks access or influence. Last week, he was one of the high-tech CEOs in Saudi Arabia to join Trump, shaking hands with the country’s leaders. Talk at the Investment Forum.
And Doge’s aggressive cost-cutting efforts, led by staff brought by Musk, are expected to continue even after he officially leaves his role as a special government employee. Both Republicans and Democrats are widely hoping that the tech billionaire, who poured $290 million into the 2024 election, will remain a major political player.
That’s one reason Democrats say they’re not worried. The mask remains a foil for Democrats to highlight, but in the context of Trump and Republicans that made him possible, CJ Warnke, spokesman for House Majority PAC, the Democratic Super PAC for Congressional Race. He said issues that replaced masks as dominant issues in the news, such as potential Medicaid cuts and tariffs, are still good for Democrats to run.
In Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, some ads in favour of Crawford have focused primarily or entirely on musk, and for a while Democrats sometimes mention musk on social media and statements, but not on Trump.
Tesla CEOs are still regularly dropping their names at the announcement of democratic congressional candidates Pennsylvania In Illinois and Californiain both safe and swing areas. And of the six Democrats running in New Jersey’s June 10th gubernatorial primary, four nominated Musk in television ads.
However, recent ads tend to avoid masking as the main villain. In the final weeks of the race, ads referring to masks as Blanket New Jersey, New Jersey, usually placed him side by side with Trump. It gives him a glimpse of references and on-screen quick flashes, not the main character.
