Painfully soft and inane questions for Musk’s White House swan song

It was billed by the president as a press conference..

But that was accurate only to the extent that there were a few select reporters asking questions in the Oval Office.

They were part of the ‘pool’, a chosen group of journalists on a rota to cover the president’s movements each day.

The rota used to be drawn up by the White House Correspondents Association on a rotating basis.

The Trump administration has changed that. They now compile the pool.

And today, as it happens, the media seemed particularly compliant.

The questions were soft. Painfully so.

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There was one on whether the president had any marital advice for his French counterpart – who appeared to be shoved by his wife the other day.

Another was about whether Mr Musk thought it was harder to colonise to Mars or reform government.

There were one or two about the pressing issues of the day, like Gaza, but nothing that could be described as probing or doing what we are supposed to be there to do – hold power to account.

And Musk, under Trump, has without question wielded immense power over the past few months; unprecedented for an unelected official.

He upended the workings of federal government, slashing thousands of jobs. He forced the closure of whole departments like USAID, changing America’s global footprint.

He did it all with a sense of enjoyment. The literal chainsaw to bureaucracy was memorable.

There is little debate in America about the need to cut government bureaucracy or cut the debt.

America, more than any country I have lived in, is a place full of bloat and waste. Yet it was Mr Musk’s methods which caused so much unease among his many critics.

They argued that where a scalpel was definitely needed, Musk instead deployed a sledgehammer.

At times, his flamboyant style was a neat distraction from the substance of Trump’s sweeping policy changes.

But none of that was interrogated in this ‘press conference’.

Instead, the inane questions went on.

Trump was asked if he would pardon Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs should he be convicted – he didn’t say ‘no’, but there was no follow up to examine why.

He was asked if he wished he’d become a judge given that they are blocking so much of his legislation. He laughed.

There was a moment when irony appeared to have died altogether.

In the same breath as trumpeting his success in cutting government waste – when he has, in fact, achieved a fraction of the $2 trillion savings he promised – Musk congratulated Trump for deploying so much gold around the Oval Office.

The presidential office has had an extensive, gaudy gold makeover costing undisclosed sums.

One reporter did ask about Musk’s alleged drug use. But by attributing the story to the New York Times – who have made the allegations – Musk had an easy out.

“Why believe that fake news,” he essentially said.

Surely the obvious question was “Mr Musk, when was the last time you took ketamine or ecstasy?”

It never came.

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We did get the answer to one burning question, trivial though it was, given what’s going on in the world.

But it took 41 minutes for any of the reporters to ask it: Why was Elon Musk sporting a shiner on his right eye?

His 4-year-old son, X, whacked him, he said.

Maybe young X has some sympathy for the thousands of federal workers – ordinary Americans – who Musk fired at his president’s pleasure.