Thursday afternoon’s meeting between Elon Musk, President Donald Trump’s Director of the Department of Government Efficiency, and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sparked criticism and allegations of corruption.
Some critics are questioning why Musk, rather than the President, was engaged in the talks. The meeting has fueled speculation that the billionaire tech mogul may wield more influence over the Oval Office than voters bargained for. Musk is only a temporary “special government employee” and has expressed strong business interest in India, one of the largest per capita consumer markets in the world, second only to China.
President Trump did not appear concerned about the billionaire’s meeting with Modi, nor did he seem to know why the two met.
When asked if Musk talked with Prime Minister Modi as “an American CEO” or as a representative of the U.S. government, Trump told reporters, “I don’t know.”
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“They met, and I assume he wants to do business in India,” Trump said. “I would imagine he met because, possibly, he’s running a company.”
Suggesting the event had at least some official significance, The Bulwark’s Sam Stein noted that the “meeting was in the Blair House with a US Flag draped right behind Musk.”
Blair House, which is across from the White House, is known as “The President’s Guest House,” and “the world’s most exclusive hotel.”
The prime minister indicated he and Musk discussed a wide range of issues, which appear to be both governmental and business.
“These are photos a head of state would normally post with the president, vice president, secretary of state or a top congressional leader,” CBS News White House and national politics reporter Kathryn Watson observed.
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Democratic strategist Matt McDermott went even further: “These are photos of a ‘government official’ using a government building and an official backdrop for what is clearly a meeting to advance his own private business interests. Just a stunning level of public corruption.”
“Keep in mind, this was the second international business arrangement that Musk was hammering out today,” Stein mentioned, adding that Musk “also had a talk this morning with Sheikh Hamdan of Dubai.”
Former Obama National Security Council spokesperson Tommy Vietor quipped, “I’m sorry, who is actually president? Trump or @elonmusk. Hard to tell these days!”
But noting that Musk has been trying to get his Tesla electric vehicles and his Starlink satellite internet service into India, CNN’s Erin Burnett Wednesday night remarked that the DOGE Director’s “role does seem to be getting bigger by the day.” She spoke with U.S. Senator Chris Murphy, who has emerged as one of Trump’s and Musk’s strongest critics.
“Do you have any problem with Musk’s presence in a meeting with Modi?” she asked.
“I mean, this is a fundamental corruption,” Senator Murphy responded. “This is a fundamental corruption.”
“We cannot let this be normalized, that the richest man in the world is operationalizing American foreign policy so that he can make himself richer. That is what is going on here. I mean, it’s extraordinary that you are going to have Elon Musk, who is essentially running the government right now, be sitting across from the Indian leader and asked the Indian leader to give him personal financial favors, instead of asking for things that would broadly help the American public.”
“Musk wants to outsource jobs, to India, he wants to outsource jobs to China, and he is using his access to Donald Trump to be able to shutter jobs in the United States and make himself more money,” Murphy charged. “We’ve never seen anything like this, even in the Gilded Age of the early 1900s, you didn’t have J.P. Morgan and the Rockefellers literally sitting in the White House using their access to the president in order to cut deals with foreign governments that would help them.”
On Thursday, Senator Murphy again warned on the potential for corruption.
“The richest man in the world who was working inside the White House just did a meeting with the Prime Minister of India to advance his own business interests. Like, why isn’t everybody’s hair on fire here about that?” the Connecticut Democrat asked, according to HuffPost’s Igor Bobic. “It’s heartbreaking to me that so many Republicans seem to have just come to peace with this stunning corruption.”
“Musk is effectively operating as the Secretary of State, and he is meeting with a key foreign leader not to ask for concessions that would benefit Americans, but for concessions that would make him rich. It’s shameless corruption at a scale never seen before in our history,” Senator Murphy added.
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