The White House is gripped with paranoia now that Elon Musk has left the government and quickly fell into a feud with president Donald Trump.
The president and his billionaire donor publicly split last week in spectacular fashion just days after Musk departed his government role, and while he's shown signs of wanting to patch things up, some Trump allies have considered actions they can take to keep the tech mogul quiet about what he might have seen, reported Rolling Stone.
“What does he have on us?” said one Trump administration official.
Musk was allowed nearly unfettered access to sensitive information and executive power, and some advisers aren't even sure what he does or doesn't know about the administration.
"Six Trump advisers, senior administration officials, and others close to the president have told Rolling Stone that an anxiety shared among some of the Trump brass is that Musk may know too much — and that it could come back to bite them considering his bitter, explosive exit," the magazine reported. "One Trump adviser wondered aloud what might be in 'Elon’s burn book,' and if the Tesla chief would ever feel compelled to deploy its contents if the name-calling between Trump and Musk, or potential retribution from the administration against Musk, ever got truly out of hand."
The tech mogul had a front-row seat to the opening months of Trump's second term, sitting in on behind-the-scenes meetings with the president, cabinet members and Republican policy makers, including some of the sources who spoke to Rolling Stone.
"Musk’s unpredictability combined with what he knows about the administration is one of the reasons why some of the Trump officials who loathe Musk and hope they never see him again — and boy, are there quite a few of those — have now internally advocated for a less emotionally satisfying approach to dealing with the conflict," the magazine reported. "As much as they’d enjoy seeing Musk humiliated, they’ve come to the conclusion that in the longer term, it’s a much better idea to counsel Trump into reaching a detente of sorts with Musk, who also just so happens to be one of the Republican Party’s most crucial mega-donors, sources tell Rolling Stone."
Musk did not respond to requests for comment, but a White House spokesman wrote off the anonymous sources as disloyal.
“The bedwetters who would rather use the failing Rolling Stones as a therapy session to anonymously pontificate their feelings to the press, rather than help the president, are not living in reality and expose their pettiness more than their commitment to serving the president,” wrote White House spokesperson Harrison Fields in a statement. “The White House is not interested in lending any attention to these baseless hypotheticals.”