Secretary of state Marco Rubio and Elon Musk held a secret meeting late last month to hash out their differences before those spilled into view during a contentious cabinet meeting last week.
Politico Magazine reported the meeting was "cordial, some even say lighthearted" as the secretary of state and Donald Trump's billionaire adviser discussed the future of the State Department and what was left of the U.S. Agency for International Development, which Musk's team at the U.S. DOGE Service rapidly dismantled after Inauguration Day.
"Musk, the world’s richest man now serving as a top adviser to President Donald Trump, wanted major cuts — and fast — at the State Department," Politico reported. "Rubio said he was fine with big cuts, but he wasn’t inclined to rush them through. He was already dealing with the fallout of Musk acolytes’ rapid dismantling of USAID, not to mention an array of global crises. He believed the changes at State should be more thought-out and methodical."
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The meeting ended with the pair on good terms, according to a source with knowledge of the situation and an administration official close to Rubio, who said their confrontation last week at the White House was calmer than described in a New York Timesarticle but didn't dispute that they argued over the scope of the department's restructuring.
“Nobody wants the State Department to be in a position where USAID was, where it had difficulty operating,” that official said.
Rubio was standing up for the department he leads, but Politico's senior foreign affairs correspondent Nahal Toosi said he was also preserving what power he does have in the Trump administration, where his past foreign policy positions have frequently conflicted with the president's priorities.
“He’s in this awkward situation,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former U.S. ambassador to Yemen. “He’s doing things that he fundamentally believes are bad policy and bad steps. He’s got to go along with it because Musk and Trump are standing between him and his higher ambition of being president.”
Rubio has attempted to protect his standing by trying to score wins for Trump by trying to end Russia's war in Ukraine or pushing Panama to distance itself from China, but the staff reductions pushed by Musk has weakened the department and undercut confidence in his leadership.
“Rubio wants to be a diplomat,” said the person familiar with the situation. “Everything DOGE does creates problems for him in terms of diplomacy.”