Guess who’s hanging around Donald Trump closer than ever these days?
X-man Elon Musk — the owner of Tesla, SpaceX and, more importantly when it comes to this election, X — has been a regular at Mar-a-Lago and is clearly pushing for influence inside the Trump administration.
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins reported, “The tech billionaire has been seen at the resort in Palm Beach, Florida, almost every day since Trump won the election last week, dining with him on the patio some evenings and hanging out with his family Sunday at the golf course. Musk has been in the room when multiple world leaders have phoned Trump, and he’s weighed in on staffing decisions, with the SpaceX and Tesla CEO even making clear his preference for certain roles.”
Collins wrote, “Musk is not only close to Trump but also with his transition co-chair, Howard Lutnick — the billionaire CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald who is leading the personnel side of the transition.”
She added, “Sources have described Trump as enamored with Musk.”
However, David Nasaw — author of biographies of William Randolph Hearst, Andrew Carnegie and Joseph P. Kennedy — wrote a guest essay for The New York Times warning Musk that he should not expect his bromance with Trump to last.
Nasaw wrote, “As the president-elect has told us time and again, he is one smart fellow and a ‘very stable genius.’ He is not going to share his victory and center stage with anyone. And why should he? What more would you have to offer, having spent in excess of $100 million to help secure his election? Mr. Trump may be mercurial, but in this situation he is highly unlikely to break historical precedent. I predict that you will probably join the long list of genius businessmen donors who were casually discarded after they had served their purpose.”
CNN contributor and tech reporter Kara Swisher, who has covered Musk extensively and knows him well, said something similar. Speaking on CNN, Swisher said, “(Musk) is not going anywhere until Trump throws him out, which could happen because both have really strong personalities who like to be at the center of attention.”
Swisher added, “They’re both narcissists, and there can be only one narcissist as head of the country and that’s Donald Trump, who just won the election.”
Swisher said she already has heard from people inside Trump’s camp who are wondering about Musk and his desire to have influence — something that might not eventually sit well with Trump should Musk overstep his bounds or gain too much popularity.
Collins writes that Musk likely won’t have an official position with Trump, but still likely will have some influence — until Trump grows tired of him.
Quartz’s William Gavin wrote “Elon Musk is already flexing his influence with Donald Trump. Here’s how.”
In his “Reliable Sources” newsletter, CNN’s Brian Stelter wrote, “Much of Musk’s immense wealth comes directly from the federal government, which has handed billions of dollars in contracts and subsidies to Tesla and SpaceX, raising the potential for enormous conflicts of interest as Musk helps Trump create winners and losers of his new administration. His ownership and clear support for Trump on X also raises concerns he will use the social platform to push political narratives that further his business interests, intertwining the US government and the world’s richest man like never before.”
The big question is: Will it last?
Chris Wallace to leave CNN
Chris Wallace is leaving CNN, according to The Daily Beast’s Hugh Dougherty.
Dougherty wrote, “The 77-year-old broadcaster said he will instead find a new home on an independent platform such as streaming or podcasting, which he described as ‘where the action seems to be.’ He highlighted how podcasters including Joe Rogan and Charlamagne tha God had set the agenda during the presidential election, but added, ‘I don’t flatter myself to think I will have that sort of reach.’”
Wallace has had a spectacular and respected career in broadcast news, having worked at CBS, ABC, NBC, Fox News and CNN. In 2020, Wallace was recognized with the Poynter Medal for Lifetime Achievement in Journalism.
Wallace joined CNN in 2021 after 18 years at Fox News. Just last week, Wallace was a part of CNN’s election night coverage. His three-year contract is up at the end of the year, and reports are that Wallace is the one who decided to walk away.
He told Dougherty, “This is the first time in 55 years I‘ve been between jobs. I am actually excited and liberated by that.”
Wallace is unsure exactly what he will do next, whether it’s streaming or a podcast, telling Dougherty, “Not knowing is part of the challenge. I‘m waiting to see what comes over the transom. It might be something that I haven’t thought of at all.”
Dougherty wrote, “CNN wanted to retain Wallace but his decision to quit ahead of contract talks will be seen as a sign of CNN’s waning influence in the media landscape.”
However, Wallace did say, “I have nothing but positive things to say. CNN has been very good to me.”
The ratings game
This should come as no surprise. Last Thursday, two days after the election in which Donald Trump defeated Kamala Harris, ratings for Fox News had massively jumped, while ratings for MSNBC headed south.
According to Nielsen, the total average daily viewers on Fox News was 2.6 million. That’s a 60% leap from one year earlier on the same day.
Meanwhile, MSNBC had only 596,000 total viewers. That was a 23% drop from the previous year.
CNN didn’t fare much better. They average 419,000 total viewers — a 40% drop.
That raises an interesting question about cable news TV ratings to come. There is some thought that we could see a “Trump bump,” meaning the constantly newsmaking Trump could be good for newspaper and website subscriptions and cable news ratings.
Fox News, whose viewers (for the most part) tend to be Trump supporters, is likely to see solid TV ratings for a while, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see the ratings stay down on MSNBC, which tends to be watched by more left-leaning viewers. It could be that dedicated MSNBC viewers might avoid the news for a while.
There’s also this. As Mediaite’s Alex Griffing points out, “Overall television viewership of election night was down significantly from 2020, some 25 percent across the 18 major news networks measured by Nielsen. The 42.3 million viewers who tuned into either broadcast or cable news on Tuesday night represent those Americans who have yet to fall prey to cord-cutting and other trends shifting viewers away from linear TV.”
As far as CNN, the latest from Puck’s Dylan Byers is “CNN’s Existential Post-Election Season.”
From Fox News to the White House
You often see cable news networks picking up on-air personalities from the White House. (Think Jen Psaki, Kayleigh McEnany, Nicolle Wallace and Dana Perino, just to name a few.)
Well, here’s a switch the other way.
Fox News contributor Tom Homan has been named “border czar” by President-elect Donald Trump. Actually, Homan was in politics before joining Fox News as a contributor. He was Trump’s former acting head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Wall Street Journal’s Michelle Hackman, Andrew Restuccia and Gareth Vipers wrote that Trump is “picking a key figure from his first term who makes no apologies for some of its most controversial policies, including the separation of migrant parents from their children.”
The Journal added, “Though Homan’s agency didn’t play a direct role in separating families, he was one of the policy’s most fervent advocates, both in public and in private, according to people who worked with him. … Homan, in a Monday morning interview with Fox News, said that he plans to once more issue guidance making all immigrants in the country illegally targets for arrest, and once again increase workplace raids.”
In the same Fox News interview, Homan had a warning for blue-state governors who said they would not cooperate with the Trump administration on this: “If you’re not going to help us, get the hell out of the way (because) we’re going to do it. So, if we can’t get assistance from New York City … we may have to double the number of agents we send to New York City because we’re going to do the job.”
Making a move
Jonathan Chait is joining The Atlantic as a staff writer. He has been a political columnist at New York magazine since 2011. Before that, he worked at The New Republic for 16 years.
Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, said in a statement, “Jon Chait is a journalist of immense gifts who writes in the tradition of Michael Kinsley. He is fearless, indefatigable, funny, acutely analytical, and smartly (which is to say, not axiomatically) contrarian. Our time requires truth tellers like Jon, and The Atlantic’s readers will benefit greatly from his writing.”
In a farewell piece for New York, Chait wrote, “My time at New York went better than I could have possibly hoped. When I think about why I am making this change now, the phrase that keeps popping back into my head is, ‘It’s time for me to go back to my home planet now.’ As I leave with fondness, I hope and believe this magazine’s best days are still ahead of it, and so are mine.”
OK, enough. Relax
“Good Morning America” and “Fox NFL Sunday” co-host Michael Strahan, shown here at an NFL game in New Jersey in September. (AP Photo/Adam Hunger)
From the vault of “Everyone needs to calm down,” Michael Strahan, co-host of ABC’s “Good Morning America” and an analyst on the “Fox NFL Sunday” pregame show, is getting criticized on social media for not holding his hand over his heart during the playing of the national anthem on Sunday.
Seriously?
In honor of Veteran’s Day, the Fox NFL pregame show was broadcasting from Naval Base San Diego. The broadcast played the national anthem and while the other members of the Fox crew — host Curt Menefee, analysts Howie Long, Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, Rob Gronkowski, and reporter Jay Glazer — all stood with their hands over their hearts, Strahan stood, respectfully I should add, with his right hand over his left wrist in front of him.
Strahan took a bunch of grief on social media from those who look to be offended about any little thing — including this moment, which wasn’t disrespectful at all. One snowflake Newsmax host even ridiculously called Strahan’s actions “repugnant” and “downright cowardly.”
As For the Win’s Charles Curtis noted, “This is ridiculous for so many reasons, but the biggest one? Strahan’s late father was Major Gene W. Strahan, Sr., whom the younger Strahan said served 23 years in the army ‘and was a proud member of the 82nd Airborne Division.’ What’s more: Strahan grew up in Germany on an Army base where his dad was stationed.”
Whether it was in response to the absurd criticism or if he was simply honoring veterans on Veterans’ Day, Strahan posted a photo of his father on Instagram, and wrote, in part, “Thank you to all veterans and active service members who courageously risk their lives to protect us every day. Your selfless service is beyond measure.”
Meanwhile, Glazer jumped to Strahan’s defense, writing on X, “I’ve just seen the criticism of @michaelstrahan. Let me tell you this, I don’t know if I have a friend who is more proud of his military roots than Michael, growing up on an army base constantly talking about what he learned from his dad Major Gene Strahan and how his time there shaped him. I heard it CONSTANTLY, still do! But also, with no fanfare I personally saw him donate thousands of dollars of clothes to veterans, including many homeless veterans as well clothes for veterans to go on job interviews. I know these days people want to be angry fast but maybe first, how is THIS for a novel idea. ASK him if he’s protesting something. When you protest you want people to know, don’t ya? He was NOT, just got caught up in how beautiful the whole moment was during the anthem and didn’t think about it. Ask the dude before forming an angry mob, but also maybe find out all he’s done for our veterans over the years.”
Media tidbits
- Semafor’s Max Tani and David Weigel with “A tale of two jets: The old media grapples with its new limits.”
- Vanity Fair’s Natalie Korach with “Can Democrats compete with the Rogan-verse.”
- In her latest column for The Guardian, longtime media columnist Margaret Sullivan with “Here’s how the American press can survive four years of Trump.” Sullivan speaks with her former colleague Marty Baron, the former executive editor of The Washington Post.
- The Washington Post has named Gerry Shih its Jerusalem bureau chief and Steve Hendrix as its London bureau chief.
- Bill Husted, a longtime columnist for both The Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News, died on Saturday from complications of cancer, according to his wife. He was 76. The Denver Post’s John Wenzel has the remembrance.
- The New York Times’ Alex Marshall with “The Booker Prize Is Tuesday. Which of These 6 Novels Should Win?”
Hot type
- I admire the timing and cleverness (and insight) of this piece from The Washington Post’s Leo Sands and Vivian Ho: “Dreaming of a move abroad? What it takes to immigrate in 5 countries.”
- For GQ, Yang-Yi Goh, Cam Wolf, and Eileen Cartter with “The 68 Best Red-Carpet Looks of All Time (and What You Can Learn From Them).”
More resources for journalists
- It’s time to apply for the Leadership Academy for Women in Media.
- Our OnPoynt report offers a forward-minded look at the state of journalism and the news industry.
- Manage big responsibilities without direct reports? Try Lead With Influence.
Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at tjones@poynter.org.
The Poynter Report is our daily media newsletter. To have it delivered to your inbox Monday-Friday, sign up here.
