Donald Trump’s aides rejected a request from Elon Musk to bring in a foreign national to help gut the federal government, according to a new report, as the president has sought to make it clear who’s in charge.
The world’s richest man wanted Baris Akis, a Turkish-born venture capitalist who holds a green card, to join his DOGE initiative, an advisory committee that calls itself the “department” of government efficiency, The Atlantic reported on Tuesday.
The law typically doesn’t allow noncitizens to work for the federal government, but Musk had asked Trump to make an exception for Akis, according to The Atlantic.
The president’s advisers answered with a private, “unequivocal” no, according to the Atlantic. They claimed it would send a “confusing” message if Trump was promising to deport millions of people while also bringing in foreigners to dismantle parts of the U.S. government.
Akis did not respond to The Atlantic’s requests for comment. The Daily Beast has reached out to the White House for comment.
Musk and his DOGE minions have spent the last week accessing the federal payments system, attempting to purge the civil service, and dismantling entire government agencies without congressional approval.
The Tesla boss had made the request to bring Akis even after a MAGA civil war broke out in December between Trump’s original homespun loyalists—including Steve Bannon—and the new tech bro wing of MAGA. Bannon had accused Musk of being a “techno-feudalist” who was undermining American workers with the H-1B visa system for highly skilled workers.
Over the past few days, Trump has made a point of telling reporters that he’s the one calling the shots.
“Elon can’t do and won’t do anything without our approval. And we will give him the approval where appropriate, and where not appropriate we won’t,” the president said Monday in the Oval Office, echoing similar comments he’d made the day before alongside Air Force One.
A longtime Trump ally told The Atlantic that his comments were “important,” because: “There’s only one president.”
Behind the scenes, aides have also warned Musk that despite the president giving him wide latitude, he’s still a staffer who must report to White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, NBC News reported Wednesday.
“I’m not sure it was his preferred direction, and it did not seem like he was expecting it,” an aide told NBC. But Musk apparently accepted the message.
Wiles told NBC News that she has “a very productive and friendly relationship” with Musk.
Musk—who donated more than a quarter-billion dollars to Trump’s re-election campaign—also speaks regularly with the president by phone. He has installed himself in the Secretary of War Suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, NBC reported.
“That’s the one person who the richest man in the world will be deferential to—the most powerful man in the world,” a source told NBC.
But federal employees say they feel like Musk is the one running the government, not Trump.
“I do not feel safe voicing my personal opinions because they contradict those of Elon Musk and other people, because I’m afraid that I will lose my job without cause,” an official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said.
