The man leading Donald Trump's transition team is reportedly driving the president-elect up the wall as he conducts a political "knife fight" against a powerful competitor.
Wall Street executive Howard Lutnick's chances of securing a powerful role as Treasury Secretary appear to be dwindling as he continues to irk the president-elect, the New York Times reported late Sunday.
"Lutnick, who has been running Mr. Trump’s transition operation, has gotten on Mr. Trump’s nerves lately," the New York Times reported.
"Trump has privately expressed frustration that Mr. Lutnick has been hanging around him too much and that he has been manipulating the transition process for his own ends."
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Lutnick, the chief executive of the firm Cantor Fitzgerald, has been squabbling with former George Soros money manager Scott Bessent as both men vie for the job, according to the Times.
"A person familiar with the process, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described the battle between Mr. Lutnick and Mr. Bessent as a knife fight, with Mr. Lutnick as the primary aggressor," the Times reported.
But Trump's annoyance reportedly has him considering unexpected candidates in former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh or Wall Street billionaire Marc Rowan, according to the Times.
One powerful ally remains on Lutnick's team and that's Elon Musk, who posted on X over the weekend that Bessent would not challenge the status quo.
"Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas [Lutnick] will actually enact change," Musk wrote. "Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another."
Karoline Leavitt, the incoming White House press secretary, declined to answer the Times' questions about a meeting Trump had with Lutnick on Sunday.
“President-elect Trump is making decisions on who will serve in his second administration," she said in a statement. "Those decisions will continue to be announced by him when they are made.”