The new Time Magazine cover has put Elon Musk behind the Resolute desk featuring him as the president as Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency continues to gain strength in the administration. The cover comes as Elon Musk announced that USAID should be shut down and also added that President Donald Trump agreed to his proposal. Musk’s DOGE team has gained several crucial access in the government triggering concerns as they are scanning and scrutinizing their work and how corners can be cut.
‘President Musk‘ is not a new rumbling that is dominating the political narrative after Trump’s election win but has been doing the rounds for quite some time. Donald Trump has also reacted to these talks by dismissing them. Elon Musk thinks these are to create a wedge between him and President Trump.
The magazine cover gave a strong voice to these social media speculations putting Elon Musk behind the Resolute Desk, which also known as the Hayes desk, is a 19th century partners desk used by the presidents as the Oval Office desk.
The cover photo is to complement the cover story: ‘Inside Elon Musk’s War on Washington’. The cover story said no other single private citizen before Elon Musk had such power over the government. “Every other government bureau got the message loud and clear. No single private citizen, certainly not one whose wealth and web of businesses are directly subject to the oversight of federal authorities, has wielded such power over the machinery of the U.S. government. So far, Musk appears accountable to no one but President Trump, who handed his campaign benefactor a sweeping mandate to bring the government in line with his agenda. DOGE directed all of TIME’s questions about its work to the White House, which declined to comment,” it said.
‘Budgets will be hacked, valuable programs will be eliminated’
The cover story called the shutting down of the USAID the first ripples in a “massive antigovernment wave”. “Budgets will be hacked. Valuable programs will be eliminated. Career civil servants will be purged, replaced with political appointees whose primary qualification is apparent fealty to the President. This is the course the electorate chose. And to many, the idea of one of the world’s most accomplished entrepreneurs attacking a sprawling, sclerotic federal bureaucracy with the same velocity and determination he brought to his car startup or rocket company is cause for celebration, not alarm,” it said.