PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — As President-elect Donald Trump makes a flurry of decisions to fill his recent administration’s Cabinet, hefty lobbying for key positions is underway behind closed doors — and sometimes in public.
Now billionaire and key Trump ally Elon Musk is calling for more direct public participation in the decision-making process for at least one top job – the head of the Treasury Department.
“It would be interesting to hear more people comment on this so that @realDonaldTrump takes the feedback into account,” Musk, whom Trump has already named to co-head a commission tasked with increasing the efficiency of government spending, posted on Saturday on the social media platform he owns, X.
Musk then used the rest of his post to become the first participant in the public poll he proposed. He endorsed Howard Lutnick, the CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald and co-chair of Trump’s transition team ahead of Inauguration Day on Jan. 20, over hedge fund manager Scott Bessent.
Musk said in his post: “Bessent is a decision as usual while @howardlutnick will actually make change happen.”
“Business-as-usual is bankrupting America, so we need change,” he said.
Both Lutnick and Bessent have been mentioned as possible candidates to lead the Treasury Department during Trump’s second term.
The president-elect has already announced many candidates in recent days, including his picks for secretary of state, Florida Senator Marco Rubio, and attorney general, the former Florida representative. Matt Gaetz. But he still has other key vacancies to fill, including heads of the Education, Labor and Treasury departments, and many leading candidates are racing to improve their standing with Trump.
Bessent is considered the more conventional, business-friendly choice. He is skeptical of cryptocurrencies, while Lutnick has suggested that people could utilize them to pay their taxes.
Musk’s post came as Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson was at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, this weekend and expected to meet with the president-elect later Saturday. Trump will then head to New York’s Madison Square Garden for the UFC heavyweight championship fight between Stipe Miocic and Jon Jones on Saturday evening.
Aside from a day trip to Washington this week to meet with President Joe Biden for nearly two hours and speak separately to House Republicans, Trump has been spending his time since his election victory at Mar-a-Lago, where galas and conservatives events took place during the week,
A return to Madison Square Garden means revisiting the site where a comedian caused an uproar at a Trump rally last month by comparing Puerto Rico to a “floating island of trash.” Still, Trump continues to enjoy visits to New York, where he lived for decades.
Trump has also been close to Ultimate Fighting Championship President Dana White for more than two decades.
White hosted a UFC fight in 2001 at the Trump Taj Mahal, a former casino-hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Trump has frequently attended UFC games since then – including during his 2024 campaign. Trump has recently been involved in fights with famed followers , including White, musician Kid Rock and former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson.
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, he and White starred in a UFC video that referred to the then-president as “Combatant In Chief.”
As Trump has increased his influence over the national Republican Party over the past nearly decade, White’s personal political profile has grown exponentially. White spoke at the 2016 and 2020 Republican conventions and at the party’s meeting in Milwaukee last July. He also addressed the crowd at Trump’s victory party in Florida in the early morning hours after Election Day.
“This is what happens when the machine comes after you,” White said at the time. “What you’ve seen over the last few years is this: I couldn’t stop him. He keeps going. He doesn’t give up.”
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