Musk throws support to Lutnick over Bessent in Treasury race

Billionaire Elon Musk voiced support for Howard Lutnick in the race for President-elect Donald Trump’s next Treasury secretary, offering a late boost to the candidacy of the Cantor Fitzgerald LP CEO as the incoming Cabinet takes shape.

Musk said on his social media platform X that he saw Lutnick as a disruptor compared to Key Square Group LP founder Scott Bessent, another finalist for the position who met with Trump on Friday.

Musk said he sees Bessent as “a business-as-usual choice” while Lutnick “will actually enact change,” and encouraged others to weigh in publicly on the decision. Lutnick is currently working as a co-chair of Trump’s transition effort.

“Business-as-usual is driving America bankrupt, so we need change one way or another,” Musk said.

A representative for Lutnick declined to comment.

Musk’s tweet was in response to Conservation Equity Management founder Kyle Bass, who tweeted that Bessent was “eminently more qualified than Howard Lutnick to run the US Treasury” and understood “markets, economics, people, and geopolitics better than anyone I’ve ever interacted with.”

A representative for Bessent didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Musk has been a regular presence by Trump’s side since Election Day, sitting in on transition meetings and calls and meetings with foreign leaders and earning his own appointment to a panel examining government efficiency. But the limits of his political influence were seen this week, when Senate Republicans elected John Thune from South Dakota over Florida’s Rick Scott — whom Musk had publicly endorsed — as their next leader.

Lobbying efforts for the Treasury job, which will sit at the center of Trump’s ambitious agenda to overhaul tariff and tax policy, have intensified in recent days, with jostling for the position spilling into the headlines. Larry Kudlow, Trump’s former National Economic Council director, informed the president-elect’s team that he did not want a role in the new administration.

Here’s the latests from the transition:

Trump backs Whatley

The president-elect used a gathering Friday night at his Mar-a-Lago club to publicly endorse Republican National Committee co-chair Michael Whatley for another term, CNN reported.

Trump invited Whatley up to the stage during a donor meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference at his estate and offered him the job, which Whatley accepted. The North Carolina attorney has led the committee alongside Lara Trump, the president-elect’s daughter-in-law, since March, when chairwoman Ronna McDaniel was removed from the post at Trump’s urging.

Trump’s nomination of Sen. Marco Rubio as U.S. secretary of state has fanned calls for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to appoint Lara Trump to serve for the next two years.

On the Democratic side, U.S. Ambassador to Japan and former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel is weighing a bid to run for chair of the Democratic National Committee, Axios reported.

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(With assistance from Amanda Gordon.)