Will an hour magazine cover run a wedge between Trump and Musk?

On By Littum

The president did not look entertained. He met the Japanese Prime Minister for the first time on Friday when a reporter shouted out to ask if he had a “reaction” on the new cover of Time Magazine. The cover, the reporter told Mr. Trump, depicting “Elon Musk sitting behind your Resolute desk. “

“No,” Mr. Trump clearly. He looked down at the floor. The next few seconds stretched as an eternity that translates related the exchange with the Prime Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, in Japanese.

Just in case any of the moment was lost in the translation, Trump was waiting until the interpreter was done and then broke: “Is Time Magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that. “Everyone around him laughed gamely if they were a little nervous.

Mr. Trump didn’t know if Time Magazine was still in business. After all, his own face had stared out from his coverage just two months ago when the magazine anointed him his “Person of the Year.” As part of the rollout of this question, Trump rang on the clock on the New York Stock Exchange in front of a blown version of the cover.

It is largely trumpology 101 that the president has a long -lasting fixation with the coverage of time, a durable totem in the 1980s, from which most of his cultural touch stones come up even today. He has always kept his cover up as an indication of status and goes so far as to mock up on fake versions with himself.

The last time he was president was a time coverage in 2017 with his adviser Stephen K. Bannon at the height of his powers – “The Great Manipulator”, it sounds – is believed to have annoyed Mr. Trump. Mr. Bannon left the White House later that year.

No one can say if the magazine still holds so much swaying over Mr. Trump, as it did then. One thing, however, seems safe, and that is that Mr. Musk seemed eager to stay on Mr. Trump’s good side. Friday morning, a few hours after the new time cover fell, Mr. Musk on the social media platform he owns to flatter the president and wrote: “I love @RealDonaldTrump As much as a straight man can love another man. “