The MSNBC panel on "Deadline: White House" shared a chuckle while mocking Elon Musk after the tech billionaire revealed in an interview Tuesday he plans to spend a lot less on politics going forward.
Speaking to the Qatar Economic Forum, Musk admitted, "I think I've done enough."
The audience at the forum responded with laughter.
Host Nicolle Wallace cited a Monday report from Politico asking why Musk has disappeared from the spotlight to illustrate how he has fallen out of favor in the Republican Party.
"In Trump’s rapidly evolving second presidency, Musk’s monopoly on political discourse, news coverage and social media seems to have broken — driven in part by how Trump and Republicans have all but stopped talking about him," the report said.
"Ouch!" commented Wallace.
However, New York Times correspondent Theodore Schleifer said that he's not certain he believes Musk's claim that he wants to back off of politics.
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"I mean, one thing we reported in our story this afternoon is that Musk is aware of the fact that he, kind of, is more politically toxic than he was. And that he's told people, or at least has signaled in private conversations after what happened in Wisconsin, that he knows he has to be a more behind the scenes player," said Schleifer, referring to the off-year election for a state Supreme Court seat where he invested millions but his chosen candidate still lost the race.
"So, that's why, forgive me, I'm a little skeptical, or maybe just a smidge skeptical that that he is totally out of politics," Schleifer added.
But it was Charlie Sykes of the anti-Trump news site The Bulwark who described Musk as "the world's richest man spending $290 million and all he got was a red hat."
Sykes went on to say, "There's no question about it. He face-planted in Wisconsin."
While Musk has been "a complete failure" in trying to cut federal spending, Sykes said that Musk managed to use his clout in government to eliminate regulations he deemed hostile and score federal contracts for his businesses.
Wallace asked Sykes what he thought of Musk's lasting brand damage.
"By the way, have you seen one of those Cybertrucks driving around lately? I mean, those are the ugliest trucks in the world," said Sykes.
He used the Cybertruck as an example of the "hubris of these rich guys who think that because they were smart in one thing that they can do something different. Now we should have gotten — we actually did — we got a foreshadowing of what he was going to do in the federal government when he came into Twitter and s---ified, you know, the social media platform. He didn't know what he didn't know. I mean, he actually thought that he was Iron Man, and that was the image that he was going to be. Iron Man. He turned out to be Zoolander. And so I think that whole myth of Elon Musk has been hurt."
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