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https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-privately-complains-about-clingy-elon-musk-nyt-reporter/

Publicly, Donald Trump is thrilled to have his mega-donor and “First Buddy” Elon Musk camping out just a few hundred feet from his house.

Privately, he seems to be tiring of Musk dropping in whenever he feels like it.

“Trump does complain a bit to people about how Musk is around a lot,” New York Times journalist and “Trump whisperer” Maggie Haberman told tech reporter Kara Swisher during the latest episode of Swisher’s podcast, On.

After pouring more than a quarter-billion dollars into Trump’s re-election effort, Musk has been renting the $2,000-per-night Banyan Cottage at Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club, the New York Times reported last week.

It’s not clear who will ultimately foot the bill for the cottage, which is just a few hundred feet from Trump’s main residence and transition-team headquarters. From Banyan, Musk has been able to attend Trump’s personnel meetings and crash awkward dinners with rival tech billionaires, like Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

“He really parked himself in Trump’s face,” Haberman said.

For now, Musk seems to be on the winning side of the MAGA civil war that’s pitted Silicon Valley’s regulation-hating tech bros against the original grassroots loyalists who have backed Trump since 2016, she said.

But it’s not clear how long that will last. Trump hasn’t even taken office yet, and already Musk has inserted himself in policy battles to the point of Democrats calling him “President Musk.”

“It definitely bothers him,” Haberman said of Trump’s reaction to the taunt. “The ‘President Musk’ line was always going to be a way to get him. Trump’s not a wind-up toy, but there certainly are very specific things that can zotz him.”