President-elect Donald Trump likely had ulterior motives when he handed tech billionaire Elon Musk his phone while speaking with Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in an eyebrow-raising moment on Friday that a New York Times reporter called a “dominance play.”
Earlier Friday, Zelenskyy reportedly called to congratulate Trump while he and Musk were together, and somewhere in the conversation, the former president handed the phone to Musk. New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who has covered Trump extensively for years, said Trump clearly trusts Musk, but that she believes another factor was at play.
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“I think that Donald Trump likes to impress other people and Elon Musk is the richest man in the world,” Haberman, a CNN political analyst, told Kaitlan Collins on her show, “The Source.” “And that’s one way of showing off for Zelenskyy. I also think it’s something of a dominance play, Musk has a relationship with Vladimir Putin…and I don’t think that is completely out of Donald Trump's head when doing this.”
Haberman added that the phone call scenario is reminiscent of when Trump first won the 2016 election and he would put his daughter and former adviser Ivanka Trump on the phone with foreign leaders.
“In this case, it’s the richest man in the world who has business with government and it’s slightly different, but it’s pretty in keeping with Trump’s character,” the reporter added.
She noted that the phone call between Musk and the Ukrainian president would continue to be “a big discussion in the coming months.”
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