Maggie Haberman Mocks Elon Musk’s Opposition to Trump Tariffs: ‘I Don’t Know What He Thought Was Going to Happen’

(Via Mediaite) 

EXCERPT:

HABERMAN: “We had been hearing that he would probably have another month or so that he was going to do solidly (ph). Now, he said probably in May. So I don’t know what that means. That could be — that could be fungible. But Special Government employees have a certain set number of days that they can work, 130 days. But you can spread that out over time. And so my take on what he said is that he is going to attempt to do that. He made clear that he is going to try to continue to be involved in the government, as long as Trump will have him. I mean, I don’t — I don’t know that Trump is eager to have Elon Musk continuing on the way he has. There has been constant controversy. There have been complaints from Cabinet secretaries. But I know Trump does like, and a lot of his aides like, a lot of the DOGE team that is in place. And Trump even said at a Cabinet meeting, they’re going to stay in place. I think that Trump is not necessarily going to want to have a direct confrontation with Elon Musk, saying, I think I’ve had enough. You need to go. So, I suspect Elon Musk can drag this out for a while. I do want to make one point, though, to your point about how he invested in Trump and it paid out big. And that’s clearly true. Some of the blowback on Musk is in how Musk has handled this effort at a supposed government shrinking that he’s been working on, and the way he has talked about federal workers. Number one. The other is one of the areas where they are in conflict on is tariffs. If Elon Musk did not realize that Donald Trump supported tariffs, which is one of the few core beliefs he has had for 40 years, I don’t know what he thought was going to happen. But if somebody says over many, many months they’re going to do this, you should assume they are.”