Katie Miller: Trump's Top Aide Stephen Miller's Wife Leaves White House to Work for Elon Musk Hours after Tech Billionaire Left His DC Post
Katie Miller is following in the footsteps of Elon Musk and will be leaving the White House to rejoin the private sector, as the tech mogul officially leaves his position in Washington, D.C. However, Katie's husband, Stephen Miller, appeared to react negatively to Musk's recent criticism of President Donald Trump's massive spending bill.
The senior Trump aide caused a stir on social media on Tuesday evening after Musk showed his displeasure and said that he was extremely disappointed with the "One Big Beautiful Bill Act," arguing that it reversed many of the budget cuts he worked hard to implement during his short time at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Another Trump Advisor Leaves White House
Stephen Miller, who served as Homeland Security advisor and White House deputy chief of staff for policy, appeared to respond to Musk's remarks with a subtweet later that evening. In a post on X, he pointed out that Congress lacked the ability to reduce discretionary spending in the way Musk's agency had intended.
"Under senate budget rules, you cannot cut discretionary spending (only mandatory) in a reconciliation bill," Miller wrote to social media on Tuesday. "So DOGE cuts would have to be done through what is known as a rescissions package or an appropriations bill."
"The Big Beautiful Bill is NOT an annual budget bill and does not fund the departments of government," he continued. "It does not finance our agencies or federal programs."
Katie Miller, who served as both an advisor and spokesperson for DOGE, will be departing the White House to join Elon Musk full-time in the private sector, according to a CNN report.
Katie Miller's new role may involve coordinating Musk's media appearances for companies like Tesla and SpaceX, according to a source.
Over the past week, Musk has spoken with outlets including The Washington Post, CBS News, and Ars Technica about the recent failed launch of SpaceX's Starship.
During her time in government, Miller had been considered a Special Government Employee—a status that allows people from the private sector to serve in federal roles, though they are limited to working no more than 130 days per year.
Back to Where They Belonged
Musk officially resigned from his position as head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) earlier this month. On Wednesday, he also announced that he was stepping down from his advisory role with Trump.
He now plans to focus more on his private business ventures. "I think I probably did spend a bit too much time on politics," Musk told Ars Technica when asked about priorities and the failed SpaceX launch.
"It's less than people would think, because the media is going to over-represent any political stuff, because political bones of contention get a lot of traction in the media," he continued.
"It's not like I left the companies," Musk continued. "It was just relative time allocation that probably was a little too high on the government side, and I've reduced that significantly in recent weeks," he added.
The world's richest man had originally planned to leave the administration by May 30 and has been gradually stepping away from politics in recent weeks, amid reports of friction with senior government officials.
Tensions peaked on Tuesday night when Musk criticized Trump's "big beautiful bill" and voiced his frustration over how his DOGE team had been treated. Speaking to CBS, Musk openly said that the $3.8 trillion tax and spending package "undermines the work that the DOGE team is doing."
In interviews with several media outlets, Musk condemned what he described as betrayal by the White House and expressed his dismay over the way both he and his young DOGE staffers had been handled.
"DOGE is just becoming the whipping boy for everything," he told the Washington Post.
"Something bad would happen anywhere, and we would get blamed for it even if we had nothing to do with it."
After playing a major role in Trump's 2024 election win through massive financial donations and highly public endorsements, Musk was informally dubbed the White House's "First Buddy."
During the early months of Trump's second term, Musk was a constant presence—personally briefing the president, downsizing federal agencies, and even bringing his son, X, to key meetings in the Oval Office.
However, his arrival caused unrest within the political sphere and among career government workers, especially as he aggressively cut jobs in a push to eliminate what he saw as unnecessary spending.
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Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Straits Times
Trump has options to punish Musk even if his federal contracts continue
The relationship between US President Donald Trump and Mr Elon Musk exploded into warfare on June 5. PHOTO: HAIYUN JIANG/NYTIMES WASHINGTON - After the relationship between President Donald Trump and Mr Elon Musk exploded into warfare on June 5, Mr Trump suggested that he might eliminate the tech titan's federal contracts. 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it,' Mr Trump posted on his social media platform. That's not as easy as Mr Trump implies. The Pentagon and Nasa remain intensely reliant on SpaceX, Mr Musk's rocket launch and space-based communications company, to get to orbit and move government data across the world. But there are options available to the president that could make Mr Musk's relationship with the federal government much more difficult than it has been so far in Mr Trump's second administration. Mr Trump's most accessible weapon to punish Mr Musk is the ability to instruct federal regulators to intensify oversight of his business operations, reversing a slowdown in regulatory actions that benefited Mr Musk's businesses after Mr Trump was elected. 'In an administration that has defined itself by reducing regulation and oversight, it would not be difficult to selectively ramp up oversight again,' said Mr Steven Schooner, a former White House contracts lawyer who is now a professor at George Washington University. With a decree, Mr Trump could suspend Mr Musk's security clearance, a step that the Trump administration has also taken against some of its Biden-era critics. That move would make it harder for Mr Musk to continue in his role as CEO of SpaceX, given its billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts. Pentagon investigators had been examining whether Mr Musk has violated federal security clearance requirements for disclosing contacts with foreign government leaders, The New York Times reported in 2024. The Trump administration could also slow down new contracts going to SpaceX in the years to come, perhaps by looking for ways to drive more work to its rivals, such as Mr Jeff Bezos' Blue Origin or the Boeing and Lockheed partnership called United Launch Alliance. But billions of dollars in financial commitments have been made to SpaceX for launches that will be spread out over the rest of Mr Trump's term to deliver astronauts and cargo to the International Space Station and even the moon, as well as to send military and spy satellites into orbit. Moreover, the services SpaceX provides are vital to some of Mr Trump's top agenda items, such as building a new space-based missile defence programme that the Pentagon is calling Golden Dome. That programme will require dozens of launches to orbit as well as space-based observation and data transmission systems to track and help intercept missile threats. SpaceX is by far the dominant global player in these launches. While Blue Origin and other companies like Rocket Lab and Relativity Space are building or have recently built their own new rockets, none has the kind of launch record and reliability that SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket has. Overall, the federal government has awarded nearly US$18 billion (S$23 billion) in contracts to SpaceX over the past decade, including US$3.8 billion just in the 2024 fiscal year, according to a tally by the Times. That makes SpaceX one of the largest federal contractors, with most of that money coming from Nasa and the Pentagon. Terminating SpaceX's contracts 'would end the US capability to launch astronauts to orbit for the foreseeable future,' said Ms Laura Seward Forczyk, founder of the space consulting firm Astralytical. It would also significantly delay the US effort to return humans to the moon, she said. Ms Bethany Stevens, Nasa's press secretary, hinted on Mr Musk's X social platform late on June 5 afternoon – as the verbal war between Mr Musk and Mr Trump continued to play out – that the deals with SpaceX are in fact not going to be cancelled anytime soon. 'Nasa will continue to execute upon the President's vision for the future of space,' Ms Stevens said, without mentioning Musk or SpaceX by name. 'We will continue to work with our industry partners to ensure the President's objectives in space are met.' But Mr Trump has more flexibility when it comes to the alphabet soup of federal agencies that regulate SpaceX as well as Tesla, Mr Musk's car company; X; the Boring Co., his underground drilling outfit; and Neuralink, his computer chip brain implant startup. The federal government, by most historical and ethical norms, is not supposed to be used as a retaliatory machine to punish political enemies. And that practice by Mr Trump would be abnormal and inappropriate, Schooner said. But the Trump administration, including the Justice Department, has shown itself willing to take up investigations that target Mr Trump's enemies or organisations that he dislikes, like Harvard University or even his former aides who have become critics, like Mr Chris Krebs, his former top cybersecurity official. Before Mr Trump was elected, at least 11 federal agencies had ongoing investigations or lawsuits targeting Mr Musk's companies. These included the Federal Aviation Administration's scrutiny of launch safety issues, the Environmental Protection Agency's inquiry into potential water pollution at SpaceX's Texas launch site and transportation regulators' questions about fatal accidents involving Tesla cars using autopilot. Several of those inquiries were put on hold. In other instances, fines that Mr Musk's companies had been assessed were being reconsidered, including one that the FAA announced in September for what it said were safety violations during launches in Florida. Mr Trump's top transportation official vowed at his confirmation hearing to 'review' that fine. As of last week, it had still not been paid, an agency official said. The Fish and Wildlife Service also has slowed down its oversight of SpaceX's Texas launch site, where the company for years has been accused of damaging adjacent state park and National Wildlife Refuge lands. That enforcement effort could be turned back on almost overnight if Mr Trump ordered it. But no other US company can currently do what Nasa needs. Boeing, the other company Nasa hired to take astronauts to orbit, has yet to complete fixes for its Starliner capsule after a test mission left two Nasa astronauts, Suni Williams and Butch Wilmore, in orbit for nine months before they finally returned to Earth in a SpaceX Crew Dragon. Aerospace company Northrop Grumman also has a contract to take cargo to the space station with its Cygnus spacecraft, but the most recent Cygnus had to be scrapped after it was damaged during shipment to Florida for launch. Mr Musk appears to recognise this leverage he has over Nasa. He initially threatened on June 5, as the war of words with Mr Trump played out, to stop future flights to deliver astronauts to the space station, but he appeared to walk back that threat later in the day. NYTIMES Join ST's Telegram channel and get the latest breaking news delivered to you.
AsiaOne
6 hours ago
- AsiaOne
Trump says he has no plans to speak to Musk as feud persists, World News
WASHINGTON - US President Donald Trump said on Friday (June 6) that he has no plans to speak with Elon Musk, signaling the president and his former ally might not resolve their feud over a sweeping tax-cut bill any time soon. Addressing reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said he wasn't "thinking about" the Tesla CEO. "I hope he does well with Tesla," Trump said. However, Trump said a review of Musk's extensive contracts with the federal government was in order. "We'll take look at everything," the president said. "It's a lot of money." Trump may get rid of the red Tesla Model S that he bought in March after showcasing Musk's electric cars on the White House lawn, a White House official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. Musk, for his part, did not directly address Trump but kept up his criticism of the massive Republican tax and spending bill that contains much of Trump's domestic agenda. On his social-media platform X, Musk amplified remarks made by others that Trump's "big beautiful bill" would hurt Republicans politically and add to the nation's US$36.2 trillion (S$46.7 trillion) debt. He replied "exactly" to a post by another X user that said Musk had criticised Congress and Trump had responded by criticising Musk personally. Musk also declared it was time for a new political party in the United States "to represent the 80 per cent in the middle!" People who have spoken to Musk said his anger has begun to recede and they think he will want to repair his relationship with Trump, according to one person who has spoken to Musk's entourage. The White House statements came one day after the two men battled openly in an extraordinary display of hostilities that marked a stark end to a close alliance. Tesla stock rose on Friday, clawing back some losses from Thursday's session, when it dropped 14 per cent and lost US$150 billion in value, the largest single-day decline in the company's history. Musk's high-profile allies have largely stayed silent during the feud. But one, investor James Fishback, called on Musk to apologise. "President Trump has shown grace and patience at a time when Elon's behaviour is disappointing and frankly downright disturbing," Fishback said in a statement. Musk, the world's richest man, bankrolled a large part of Trump's 2024 presidential campaign. Trump named Musk to head a controversial effort to downsize the federal workforce and slash spending. Trump feted Musk at the White House a week ago as he wrapped up his role as head of the Department of Government Efficiency. Musk cut only about half of one per cent of total spending, far short of his brash plans to axe US$2 trillion from the federal budget. Since then, Musk has denounced Trump's tax-cut and spending bill as a "disgusting abomination." His opposition is complicating efforts to pass the bill in Congress where Republicans hold a slim majority. Trump's bill narrowly passed the House of Representatives last month and is now before the Senate, where Republicans say they will make further changes. Nonpartisan analysts say the measure would add US$2.4 trillion in debt over 10 years. House Speaker Mike Johnson said he has been texting with Musk and hopes the dispute is resolved quickly. "I don't argue with him about how to build rockets and I wish he wouldn't argue with me about how to craft legislation and pass it," Johnson said on CNBC. 'Very disappointed' Trump had initially stayed quiet while Musk campaigned to torpedo the bill, but broke his silence on Thursday, telling reporters he was "very disappointed" in Musk. Musk, who spent nearly US$300 million in last year's elections, said Trump would have lost without his support and suggested he should be impeached. Trump suggested he would terminate government contracts with Musk's businesses, which include rocket company SpaceX and its satellite unit Starlink. The billionaire then threatened to decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, the only US spacecraft capable of sending astronauts to the International Space Station. Musk later backed off that threat. Musk had been angered when Trump over the weekend revoked his nomination of Musk ally Jared Isaacman to head the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Two sources with direct knowledge of the dispute said White House personnel director Sergio Gor had helped turn Trump against Isaacman by highlighting his past donations to Democrats. Musk and Gor had been at odds since the billionaire criticised Gor's pace of hiring at a March cabinet meeting, the two sources said. A White House spokesperson, Steven Cheung, praised Gor's efforts to staff the administration but did not address his relationship with Musk. A prolonged feud could make it harder for Republicans to keep control of Congress in next year's midterm elections if Musk withholds financial support or other major Silicon Valley business leaders distance themselves from Trump. Musk had already said he planned to curtail his political spending, and on Tuesday he called for "all politicians who betrayed the American people" to be fired next year. His involvement with the Trump administration has provoked widespread protests at Tesla sites, driving down sales while investors fretted that Musk's attention was too divided. [[nid:718829]]
AsiaOne
7 hours ago
- AsiaOne
From bros to foes: How the unlikely Trump-Musk relationship imploded, World News
WASHINGTON - When Donald Trump met privately with White House officials on Wednesday (June 4), there was little to suggest that the US president was close to a public break with Elon Musk, the billionaire businessman who helped him win a second term in office. Two White House officials familiar with the matter said Trump expressed confusion and frustration in the meeting about Musk's attacks on his sweeping tax and spending bill. But he held back, the officials said, because he wanted to preserve Musk's political and financial support ahead of the 2026 midterm election. By Thursday afternoon, Trump's mood had shifted. He had not spoken to Musk since the attacks began and was fuming over what one White House aide described as a "completely batshit" tirade by the Tesla CEO on X, his social media platform. On Friday, a White House official said Trump was not interested in talking to Musk and no phone call between the two men was planned for the day. Musk had blasted Trump's tax bill as fiscally reckless and a "disgusting abomination." He vowed to oppose any Republican lawmaker who supported it. The bill would fulfil many of Trump's priorities while adding, according to the Congressional Budget Office, US$2.4 trillion (S$3 trillion) to the US$36.2-trillion US public debt. Privately, Trump had called Musk volatile. On Thursday, he told his team, it was time to take the gloves off. Sitting next to German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office, Trump told reporters he was "very disappointed" in his former adviser. Musk quickly hit back on social media, and the back-and-forth devolved from there. "The easiest way to save money in our budget, billions and billions of dollars, is to terminate Elon's government subsidies and contracts," Trump posted on Truth Social, his social media site. Within minutes, Musk said it might be time to create a new political party and endorsed a post on X from Ian Miles Cheong, a prominent Musk supporter and right-wing activist, calling for Trump's impeachment. The depth of the Trump-Musk relationship at its height was unprecedented in Washington - a sitting president granting a billionaire tech CEO access and influence inside the White House and throughout his government. Musk spent nearly US$300 million backing Trump's campaign and other Republicans last year. For months, Musk played both insider and disruptor - shaping policy conversations behind the scenes, amplifying Trump's agenda to millions online, and attacking the bureaucracy and federal spending through his self-styled Department of Government Efficiency. Just last week, Trump hosted a farewell for Musk and declared that "Elon is really not leaving." Now he had not only left but had turned into a top critic. Hours after Trump's Oval Office remarks, a third White House official expressed surprise at Musk's turnaround. It "caught the president and the entire West Wing off guard," she said. Musk did not respond to emails seeking comment about the downturn in relations. His super PAC spending group, America PAC, and spokeswoman Katie Miller did not respond to calls and texts requesting comment. In a statement, the White House called the breakup an "unfortunate episode from Elon, who is unhappy with the One Big Beautiful Bill because it does not include the policies he wanted." From allies to adversaries The Musk-Trump breakup sent Tesla's stock price plunging 14 per cent on Thursday and drove uncertainty among Trump's allies in Congress, who are working to pass the monumental spending package that Democrats and a small number of vocal Republicans oppose. Tesla shares clawed back from steep losses on Friday. The breakup could reshape both men's futures. For Trump, losing Musk's backing threatens his growing influence among tech donors, social media audiences, and younger male voters - key groups that may now be harder to reach. It could also complicate fundraising ahead of next year's midterm elections. For Musk, the stakes are potentially even higher. The break risks intensified scrutiny of his business practices that could jeopardise government contracts and invite regulatory probes, which might threaten his companies' profits. Some of Musk's friends and associates were stunned by the fallout, with a number of them only recently expressing confidence that the partnership would endure, according to two other sources familiar with the dynamics. The split had been simmering for weeks, said the first two White House officials, but the breaking point was over personnel: Trump's decision to pull his nomination of Jared Isaacman, Musk's hand-picked candidate to be Nasa administrator. "He was not happy" about Isaacman, one of the White House officials said of Musk. Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur and close Musk ally, was seen as key to advancing Musk's vision for space exploration and commercial space ventures. After his nomination was scuttled, Isaacman posted on X: "I am incredibly grateful to President Trump, the Senate and all those who supported me." The move was viewed within the administration as a direct snub to Musk, the two officials said, signaling a loss of political clout and deepening the rift between him and Trump's team. Before the Isaacman episode, top White House aides behind the scenes had already begun limiting Musk's influence - quietly walking back his authority over staffing and budget decisions. Trump himself reinforced that message in early March, telling his cabinet that department secretaries, not Musk, had the final say over agency operations. At the same time, Musk began to hint that his time in government would come to a close, while expressing frustration at times that he could not more aggressively cut spending. His threats and complaints about Trump's bill grew louder, but inside the White House, few believed they would seriously alter the course of the legislation - even as some worried about the fallout on the midterms from Musk's warnings to cut political spending, the first two White House officials said. Still, a fourth White House official dismissed the impact of Musk's words on the president's signature bill. "We're very confident," he said. "No one has changed their minds." But there was bafflement at the White House at how a relationship that only last week had been celebrated in the Oval Office had taken such a turn. Time will tell whether the rift can be repaired. [[nid:718783]]
