Mr. Musk dug into his companies’ budgets, preferring to cut too much rather than too little and to deal with the fallout later. Under Donald Trump, he is set to apply those tactics to the U.S. government.

Donald Trump joked that he could not get Elon Musk "out of here" during a speech at a black-tie event in Mar-a-Lago. In his first major speaking event since the president-elect's election victory, Trump praised the "high IQ" of the tech entrepreneur and owner of X,