Rubio and Trump Officers Conflict With Elon Musk in an Explosive Assembly

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Marco Rubio was incensed. Right here he was within the Cupboard Room of the White Home, the secretary of state, seated beside the president and listening to a litany of assaults from the richest man on the planet.

Seated diagonally reverse, throughout the elliptical mahogany desk, Elon Musk was letting Mr. Rubio have it, accusing him of failing to slash his workers.

You could have fired “no person,” Mr. Musk advised Mr. Rubio, then scornfully added that maybe the one individual he had fired was a workers member from Mr. Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity.

Mr. Rubio had been privately livid with Mr. Musk for weeks, ever since his workforce successfully shuttered a complete company that was supposedly below Mr. Rubio’s management: the USA Company for Worldwide Growth. However, within the extraordinary cupboard assembly on Thursday in entrance of President Trump and round 20 others — particulars of which haven’t been reported earlier than — Mr. Rubio obtained his grievances off his chest.

Mr. Musk was not being truthful, Mr. Rubio stated. What concerning the greater than 1,500 State Division officers who took early retirement in buyouts? Didn’t they depend as layoffs? He requested, sarcastically, whether or not Mr. Musk needed him to rehire all these individuals simply so he may make a present of firing them once more. Then he laid out his detailed plans for reorganizing the State Division.