WATCH: Reporter Tries (and Fails) to Drive Wedge Between Trump and Musk

At a photo op in the Oval Office, a reporter asked President Trump for his reaction to a new Time magazine cover depicting Elon Musk as President of the United States sitting behind the Resolute Desk. This was an obvious and ham-handed attempt to get a rise out of Trump and to drive a wedge between the two men.

Conventional wisdom is that Trump is an egomaniac who rages if anyone gets more attention or better press than he does. They will point to his anger at Steve Bannon when Time put him on the cover and labeled him “Trump’s Brain.” However, the difference between Bannon and Musk couldn’t be more stark.

First off, Bannon actually went around DC claiming to basically be “Trump’s brain” and he was solicitous of such attention. Musk is not. Also, frankly, Musk is a literal genius and Trump really respects him, not so much with Bannon, according to my sources who worked in the first several months of Trump’s 2017 White House.

Either way, the Junior High attempt at getting Trump to trash Musk fell flat on its face. In fact, Trump’s response is one for the ages:

President Trump: “No. Is Time magazine still in business? I didn't even know that. Elon is doing a great job. He's finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste. You see it with the USAID, but you're going to see it even more so with other agencies and other parts of government. He's got a staff that's fantastic. He's wanted to be able to do this for a long time, and everybody else knew it was existent, but I think never so much when you look at USAID. That's a — that's a fraud. The whole thing is a fraud. Very little — very little being put to good use. Every single line that I look at in terms of events and transactions is either corrupt or ridiculous and we're going to be doing that throughout government and I think we're going to be very close to balancing budgets for the first time in many years. I think we're going to be very close to, in addition to monies coming in from tariffs, etc., etc.. But no, he's doing a very good job. I'm very happy with it.

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