You could say he did an X-ponential amount of damage.
New York Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan appeared Friday on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” to discuss some details from their new book, “Regime Change,” and shared a few not-so-flattering anecdotes about tech tycoons’ relationships with the president, including a harsh observation about Elon Musk.
Screenshot MS NOW via YouTube
In the midst of a conversation about the chaotic ways in which the White House operates during President Donald Trump’s second term, Haberman attributed some of the mess to Musk by saying the government “never quite recovered” from his short-lived bromance while running the so-called Department of Government Efficiency.
“You had Elon Musk — and we get into this in great detail [in the book] — essentially serving not as a co-president but as a co-president for parts of the first four months or so,” Haberman said. “And that created so much destabilization of this government that I think they also never quite recovered.”
He also did a good amount of damage.
During Musk’s stint as the head of DOGE, he fired hundreds of thousands of federal workers and gutted funding for medical research, school lunch initiatives, staffing at national parks and forests, and a litany of other programs.
Musk’s dominance in the White House — which apparently included sleepovers that first lady Melania Trump wasn’t thrilled about — began to fizzle out in April 2025.
Kevin Dietsch via Getty Images
Although Haberman neglected to offer more details on her statement about Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX boss was mentioned again while Swan was describing how Musk got a kick out of watching his tech rivals Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg “sucking up” to Trump.
Swan described how Trump showed Musk texts Bezos and Zuckerberg sent him on his cellphone, to which Musk responded: “First-class groveling.”
In terms of groveling, however, it seems that Bezos’ brand of ass-kissery was a bit slicker than Zuckerberg’s, at least according to Haberman and Swan.
Swan shared a story in which Zuckerberg was having dinner at Trump’s Florida country club Mar-a-Lago when the president decided to play “The Star-Spangled Banner” on the club’s speakers from his iPad.
Bloomberg via Getty Images
“But it was not the normal version of ‘Star Spangled Banner,’” Swan said. “It was the version recorded by the J6 Prison Choir, OK?” Swan continued. “So, Zuckerberg stands up, hand on the chest, you know, he doesn’t know what this thing is … and it’s the version … recorded by people who were imprisoned for their role in the Jan. 6 riot.”
“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski was especially grossed out by the Zuckerberg anecdote.
“I’m still stuck on the grotesque scene of the J6 choir music playing, hand on hearts,” a still-stunned Brzezinski said several minutes later.
To hear Haberman and Swan’s remarks about tech billionaires in full, watch the video above.
