WASHINGTON: The new chief of the agency spearheading efforts to slash the federal workforce said on Monday he had no personal ties to tech billionaire and former Trump adviser Elon Musk, pledging to faithfully execute President Donald Trump\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have zero personal relationship with Elon Musk. I have talked to Elon Musk once on the phone in my life,\u201d Scott Kupor, who was sworn in to lead the Office of Personnel Management earlier this month, told reporters.<\/p>\n
The comments underscored lingering questions about the loyalties of Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs among Trump administration officials following a public spat between Trump and Musk that led to a deep rift between the two former allies.<\/p>\n
Kupor said he had told Trump and other people in the White House that \u201cmy job is to do the agenda that the president lays out to the best I can.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I\u2019m not going to do it consistent with someone else\u2019s objectives that are inconsistent with what the president wants to do,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
Musk, who spent over a quarter of a billion dollars to help Trump win November\u2019s presidential election, led the Department of Government Efficiency\u2019s efforts to slash the budget and cut the federal workforce until his departure in late May to refocus on his tech empire, including electric vehicle maker Tesla .<\/p>\n
While Trump hailed Musk\u2019s tenure upon his departure, the president quickly pulled the nomination of Musk ally and tech entrepreneur Jared Isaacman to lead NASA. Reuters previously reported that Musk was disappointed by Isaacman\u2019s removal.<\/p>\n
The president also threatened to cancel billions of dollars worth of contracts between the federal government and Musk\u2019s companies after Musk denounced Trump\u2019s tax-cut and spending bill as a \u201cdisgusting abomination.\u201d<\/p>\n
Prior to taking the helm at OPM, Kupor was a partner at Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which invests in Musk\u2019s AI startup Xai as well as SpaceX. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON: The new chief of the agency spearheading efforts to slash the federal workforce said on Monday he had no personal ties to tech billionaire and former Trump adviser Elon Musk, pledging to faithfully execute President Donald Trump\u2019s agenda. \u201cI have zero personal relationship with Elon Musk. I have talked to Elon Musk once on …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":84094,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-84082","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84082","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84082"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84082\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84096,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84082\/revisions\/84096"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84082"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84082"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nabanews.pk\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84082"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}