This article originally appeared on Business expert.
On Wednesday, several of the rulers of the universe gathered and had one name on their lips: Elon Musk.
At the New York Times’ annual DealBook Summit, the world’s richest man was the talk of fellow billionaires, CEOs and political elites.
To ensure, Andrew Ross Sorkin, DealBook founder and MC that day, asked just about all of his guests about Musk, who made headlines last 12 months at the same summit with advertisers in X to “fuck you.”
And while Tesla’s CEO wasn’t present this 12 months, there was loads of talk about his latest role. Over the past few months, Musk has grow to be a political advisor and confidant to President-elect Donald Trump and has served as one of his largest donorscommitting roughly $119 million to support his campaign.
Reaction to Musk’s latest role as co-chairman of Department of Government Effectiveness ranged from cautious optimism to finish disinterest.
Ken Griffinbillionaire hedge fund manager and Republican Party donor, praised Musk’s entrepreneurship.
“He leads Tesla and SpaceX with a level of excellence that few companies can even relate to,” Griffin said.
At the same time, he questioned how much Musk could influence federal spending.
“He will have to face the hard reality, the hard truth, that making cuts in any form will be politically very unpopular,” Griffin said. “It will be very difficult to squeeze trillions of dollars out of the base budget.”
OpenAI CEO Sam Altmanembroiled in a personal and legal dispute with Musk, similarly praised the Tesla CEO’s business acumen.
“At a time when most of the world wasn’t thinking very big, he encouraged a lot of people, including me, to think much more big,” Altman said of his Co-founder of OpenAI.
While Altman said his feelings toward Musk have modified, he added that unlike his former “mega hero,” he can be exploiting his political closeness for his own financial gain.
“It would be profoundly un-American to use the degree of political power Elon has to harm competitors and benefit his own businesses,” Altman said. “It would be deeply contrary to the values that I think he holds very dear.”
Jeff Bezoswhose Blue Origin directly competes with Musk’s SpaceX, agreed that Musk’s relationship with Trump wasn’t that worrying.
“I take at face value what has been said, which is that he has no intention of using his political power to benefit his own companies or harm his competitors,” Bezos said. “Let us pursue this in the hope that the statements made are correct and that it will be done openly in the public interest.”
And Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet, said that Musk’s xAI the artificial intelligence company was a formidable competitor “given Elon’s track record.”
Interviewees with political experience – Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powelland former President Bill Clinton – seemed the most unfazed by Musk’s latest position of power.
Powell seemed confident in the Fed’s independence, although Musk has signaled support for putting the central bank under the president’s command.
Clinton appeared to almost completely ignore Musk’s growing influence – including the proven fact that he was leading a phone call between Trump and President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky.
“Trump’s whole bullshit is that all these rules and systems lead nowhere,” the former president said.
“Being the richest guy on Earth is way more important than anything else you can be to him,” Clinton added. “That’s what he values. It’s no big deal.”