Elon Musk’s father claimed that his son is “not cut out for politics” ahead of the world’s richest man’s attendance Donald Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Speculation over Musk’s political ambitions and future has intensified since Trump’s return to office last month.
His father, Errol Musk, sat down with Al Arabiya News’ Global News Today program where he was quizzed on whether he thinks his son, who has imposed sweeping cuts across government through his Department of Government Efficiency, would consider running for president after a second Trump term.
The elder Musk claimed that the South African-born tech billionaire’s brashness would lead to him failing to communicate with the public.
The U.S. Constitution also states that a president must be a natural-born citizen who is at least 35-years-old.
“Elon is not cut out for politics,” Errol Musk said Monday. “Politics is where you have to deal with everyone, from the very incredibly clever to the very somewhat not clever, the highly sophisticated to the very unsophisticated. If you can’t do that, don’t get into politics.”
Elon and Errol Musk have had a tumultuous relationship over the years.
The SpaceX CEO has said in the past that his father had done “almost every evil thing you can possibly think of.”
In return, Errol Musk said on a Wide Awake podcast episode last week that his son hasn’t been a good dad to his own children.
“No, he hasn’t been a good father. The first child was too much with nannies and died in the care of a nanny,” he said of Nevada Alexander Musk who died at 10 weeks old from Sudden Death Syndrome.
“If Elon hears this, he’s going to shoot me or something,” he added. “Then he had five children, each one had their own nanny. It was a weird situation. He didn’t spend enough time with them.”
Errol Musk’s most recent criticism of his son came a day before Musk attended Trump’s first Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.
Despite not holding a cabinet position or any formal decision-making authority, the DOGE leader was there as a “special government employee” and “senior adviser” to the president, Trump’s Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said prior to the meeting.
In a post on TruthSocial, Trump doubled down on his decision to include Musk in the meeting.
“ALL CABINET MEMBERS ARE EXTREMELY HAPPY WITH ELON. The Media will see that at the Cabinet Meeting this morning!!!,” he wrote.
Members of Congress, political pundits and the public have watched Musk and his advisory body rip through various government departments in an attempt to slash bureaucracy and cut federal spending by trillions.
This week, Musk demanded federal employees respond to an email requesting specifics of what they had achieved last week or risk termination.
After initially setting a deadline for 11:59 p.m. on Monday, the tech billionaire gave federal workers a second opportunity to respond to his correspondence at Trump’s “discretion.”
“Subject to the discretion of the president, they will be given another chance,” he tweeted late Monday. “Failure to respond a second time will result in termination.”
