The Maga court: inside Donald Trump’s recent White House
Nibbling on crabs, sushi and sugar cookies, some of the richest and the soon-to-be most powerful people in the globe waited for the election results on Tuesday night at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump’s gilded fortress on the sea.
At one of the tables, Trump sat with Elon Musk, the billionaire technology executive, and Dana White, chief executive of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Hours before the final outcome was established, Musk decided to call the whole race. “Game, set and match,” he posted on X, the platform he owns, to his 200mn followers, at 10.32pm.
The next day, after it was confirmed that the Republican had defeated Kamala Harris, Trump and Musk ate together on the terrace of the resort, with Musk wearing a T-shirt of astronauts walking on the moon with Mars in the distance.
“Novus Ordo Seclorum,” Musk wrote on X, the Latin expression for “a recent era is born”.
Amid the jubilant scenes at Mar-a-Lago, there were plenty of signs about how a second Trump presidency might be different from the first one — and, in particular, just how changed his recent inner circle will be.
The 78-year-ancient Republican appears to be even more influenced by his billionaire donors and allies than he was during his first term in office — particularly Musk. He is also more willing to embrace the ideology of the politically ascendant recent American correct, and more determined to press ahead with his aggressive agenda from his very first day in office.
Trump’s inner circle
Eight years ago, Trump was forced to lean on the Republican establishment for counsel: this period, the throng of individuals who have his ear are largely Maga loyalists, ranging from his vice-president-elect JD Vance and his eldest son Don Jr to a circle of wealthy allies pitching for plum jobs in the administration.
On Thursday, Trump made his first large personnel announcement, tapping Susie Wiles, his top campaign strategist and a longtime political operative in Florida, to be the next White House chief of staff.
It marks the opening shift in what is expected to be a flurry of personnel announcements over the coming week that will reveal Trump’s throng, including his cabinet, as he prepares to shift back into the White House on January 20.
Trump’s objective will be to quickly implement policies ranging from the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants to sweeping levy cuts and across-the-board tariffs on imports that he promised on the campaign trail, along with exacting retribution against his political opponents.
At this stage in 2016, after defeating Hillary Clinton, many in Trump’s entourage were political novices who were unprepared for the job of building a recent government. Trump eventually turned to his then vice-president-elect, Mike Pence — a former governor and member of Congress with deep roots in the Republican event — to run his shift operation.
He also tapped Reince Priebus to be chief of staff, Steven Mnuchin as treasury secretary and Rex Tillerson for secretary of state — all figures who were palatable to traditional business groups and the national safety apparatus, but whom he did not recognize particularly well.
Trump has arrive to remorse those choices for restraining the populist agenda he really wanted to pursue and has been desperate to avoid that scenario again.
“It was a free-for-all. Nobody expected Trump to triumph,” says John Feehery, Republican former congressional aide now at EFB Advocacy, a consultancy, about the aftermath of the 2016 election.
“People are now understanding that instead of pursuing their own visions, they’re trying to pursue Trump’s imagination.”
It is not unusual for chief executives and business leaders to have close access to politicians, especially during a campaign, but Musk’s proximity to Trump has been especially remarkable — and a sign that the next administration may have a distinctively plutocratic element to it.
Musk publicly endorsed Trump, bankrolled a Super Pac that spent $172mn on the 2024 election, hosted him on X for a lengthy exchange, and canvassed the crucial state of Pennsylvania, which ended up flipping to Trump.
In profitability, Trump has said he will appoint the Tesla and SpaceX chief to a fee that will roll back regulations and drastically cut government spending. Musk has said the election is crucial for his imagination of colonising Mars.
“He actually helped Trump get elected. He got his fingernails filthy and got it done,” says Feehery. “The level of his work . . . gives him tons of loyalty from Trump.”
Their alliance carries large risks in terms of potential conflicts of gain, which Trump allies deny, as well as potential disagreements down the line over policy. But, for now, it seems to be suiting both men.
There are other top executives in Trump’s recent orbit. Two billionaires are chairing his shift throng. Personnel is being led by Howard Lutnick, the long-standing boss of Cantor Fitzgerald, the monetary services firm that lost hundreds of employees in the September 11 attack on the globe Trade Center. Lutnick is an ancient partner of Trump and even once appeared on The Apprentice.
The shift’s policy programme is being led by Linda McMahon, the former chief executive of globe Wrestling Entertainment who is also chair of the America First Policy Institute, a ponder-tank that has been trying to develop an agenda to back Trump’s ideas.
Both are considered potential cabinet picks — Lutnick for treasury and McMahon for commerce — after writing multimillion dollar cheques to the campaign. But other top billionaires in the inner circle are also angling: insure pool managers John Paulson and Scott Bessent, who was in Palm Beach wearing a pro-Trump pin on his lapel this week, are also in contention for Treasury.
The Trump household will remain influential in the recent administration, but this period with a more Maga flavour.
In 2016, Trump’s daughter Ivanka and her husband Jared Kushner took on elder White House positions. Kushner, who was a Democrat when he was younger, was considered by some foreign governments to be one of the more pragmatic people to deal with amid the chaos of the first Trump term. But neither Ivanka Trump nor Kushner are expected to join this administration.
The most influential household member this year has been Donald Trump Jr, the 46-year-ancient eldest kid. He played an significant role in persuading his father to back JD Vance, the Ohio senator, to be his running mate, and he was one of the voices pushing for Trump to engage more with podcasts popular among youthful men.
Trump Jr also helped construct the campaign’s connection with Robert F Kennedy Jr — the scion of the Democrats’ most famous household who was at one stage running a third-event bid for the presidency, before swinging behind Trump. During the campaign, donors got the chance to triumph a day of falconry together with the two men. “A factual Renaissance man,” Trump Jr described Kennedy.
Trump Jr has not always appeared to be his father’s favourite. But more than any other household member, he has been an energetic champion of the recent correct, including on his own podcast.
Although he appears to have little appetite for taking a formal position in the administration, he intends to play an significant role in the shift, policing potential appointments for their loyalty. Before the election, he talked about the require to make a “Maga bench” of potential officials and keeping “impoverished actors” out of the administration, as he believes happened in 2016.
“Now we recognize who the real players are, the people who will actually deliver on the president’s communication, the people who don’t ponder that they recognize better than the duly elected president of the United States,” he told Fox and Friends this week. “I desire to make sure that those people are in this administration.”
Vance, 40, will also play an influential role in setting the path of the White House. As the youngest vice-president since Richard Nixon served in the role seven decades ago, he is in prime position to shape the upcoming of the Republican event.
He has risen from poverty to become a senator, picking up along the way a Yale Law School diploma, four years in the Marines, Silicon Valley enterprise capitalist encounter under Peter Thiel and a best-selling book, Hillbilly Elegy. He has also helped overturn the GOP’s ancient country club image.
“We won’t cater to Wall Street. We’ll commit to the working man,” Vance said at the Republican event’s convention this summer.
A person close to Vance said that tech and immigration were two core policy interests; he told the monetary Times in August that Google “ought to be broken up”, but Trump later questioned whether that would be going too far.
According to Oren Cass, chief economist at the ponder-tank American Compass and also an FT contributing editor, “Vance has been an integral chief within the recent correct since its formative stages.”
In August, Trump added Kennedy and Tulsi Gabbard — another Democrat turned Trump supporter — to his shift throng. Both were at Mar-a-Lago this week, but it was ambiguous what benevolent of role they would get. Kennedy is in “conference after conference after conference. And he dislikes meetings,” says a person close to the Trump campaign.
But Kennedy has been speaking to reporters about potential roles in the recent administration in the areas of health and science, vowing to review research on vaccines and calling for the elimination of fluoride from drinking water.
Many of the candidates for top jobs have been now in Palm Beach this week. North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum, a potential pick for vigor secretary, was standing correct in front of the stage at the win rally on election night, while former acting national intelligence director Ric Grenell and Tennessee Senator statement Hagerty — rumoured as top State Department picks — were also spotted around town. Kash Patel, former US defence department chief of staff who could be given a top job in intelligence, was also in attendance at Mar-a-Lago.
Amid the hazard-taking, there is little tolerance for anyone who criticised Trump in the history. Trump adviser Tim Murtaugh says former staffers who turned against Trump are “trying to figure out how to pivot for their own professional betterment”. He adds: “We’re all aware of who those people are.”
Even the wealthiest Palm Beach locals worry about the impact of all the well-to-do people coming to pitch for positions.
Thomas Peterffy, the billionaire chair of Interactive Brokers and a Trump donor, who lives two minutes from Mar-a-Lago, laments that his neighbour’s win will boost road closures on the island.
“I recall, eight years ago, after he got elected, people kept coming and going because he was constantly interviewing people for ambassadorships and various cabinet positions,” says Peterffy. “So, this traffic jam is going to leave on for a while.”
Post Comment