Elon Musk Gives Himself Cringey Title In Trump's Administration (Because Donald Won't)
There may be trouble in paradise with newfound besties Donald Trump and Elon Musk. The BFFs have seemingly been inseparable during the final leg of the presidential election campaign, as well as the month after Trump won the election. All that time together, however, hasn't yielded the SpaceX founder an important title from the President-elect — but it has resulted in Trump accidentally confirming Musk is getting super annoying.
While Trump did name Musk as co-leader of the Department of Government Efficiency, a new entity he and Vivek Ramaswamy will be running (via Reuters), he didn't bestow an official title to the Tesla CEO. Musk presumably felt that enough time had passed, so he decided to give himself a title as part of Trump's administration. According to a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, Musk said his title is "Volunteer IT Consultant." It's unclear if his role is actually a volunteer one, or one that's paid (per Daily Mail), but either way, it's not like Musk needs the extra money. Even though he's currently having money troubles, he is still one of the richest people in the world.
Also in his tweet, Musk explained how terrible the federal government's technology setup is. "Need to fix the IT infrastructure in order to make government work. This is a grind & hardly glorious, but we can't make government efficient & fix the deficit if the computers don't work," he wrote.
Users on X were quick with jokes about the government's outdated computer software
Giving yourself a job title isn't exactly ideal, but the fact that Elon Musk had included the word "volunteer" is surprising. This makes him sound like the last line of defense to tackle a problem, instead of the person in charge who calls the shots.
In response to his tweet, one person joked that the IRS manages citizens' taxes on an old computer using Windows 98. Musk saw the tweet and responded, "I wish. Unfortunately, it's much worse than that." What's worse than Windows 98? Windows NT, like someone quipped? Another person responded to Musk's tweet with a reference to a popular IT meme.
No matter what title Musk has or doesn't have, it doesn't change the fact that Donald Trump has been openly shading him for hanging around Mar-a-Lago too much. Could Trump's lack of a gifted title to Musk be a petty way for the president-elect to secretly express his annoyance at Musk's constant presence?