Time Magazine cover features Elon Musk behind Trump's Resolute Desk, president shrugs it off

In yet another proactive move, Time Magazine released its latest print cover which featured Tesla CEO Elon Musk behind the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office, which currently belongs to US President Donald Trump. The cover comes at a time when Musk has garnered a significant influence within the Trump administration after the President made him lead the new Department of Government Efficiency (Doge).

Many started questioning Musk’s influence since the department now has the power to gut the federal workforce. The simple cover with the magazine’s signature red backdrop shows Musk, a cup of coffee in hand, sandwiched between the presidential desk and the American and presidential flags. The piece is from Simon Schuster and Brian Bennett.

“So far, Musk appears accountable to no one but President Trump, who handed his campaign benefactor a sweeping mandate to bring the government in line with his agenda.,” Schuster and Bennett wrote, sharing the idea behind the cover. “DOGE directed all of TIME’s questions about its work to the White House, which declined to comment," they furthered.

Trump shrugs it off

When asked about his take on the cover, Trump attempted to shrug off the question. While commenting on the matter, the president mockingly asked whether the magazine was “still in business” while claiming he hadn’t seen the latest issue.

Interestingly, Trump’s dismissive take on the Time cover came weeks after he boasted about being named the magazine’s 2024 Person of the Year, an honour he’s long coveted and first received after winning the presidential election in 2017. While Trump did not say much about the cover, he did praise Musk for “finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste,” after the Tesla CEO essentially shut down the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).

“He‘s got a staff that‘s fantastic,” Trump added about Musk’s DOGE team, which recently saw a staffer resign after his racist comments were exposed. However, Musk assured that the employer would be reinstated with Vice President JD Vance supporting the crusade.

This is not the first time Time magazine pushed one of the close allies of Trump on the cover, rather than the president himself. The Time Magazine’s 2017 cover featured his adviser Stephen K. Bannon at the height of his powers — “The Great Manipulator,” it read. According to The New York Times, the move did annoy Trump and interestingly, Bannon was out of the White House the very next year.

Meanwhile, Musk was seen trying to damage control the situation. A few hours after the Time cover dropped Musk posted on the social media platform he owns to flatter the president, writing, “I love @realDonaldTrump as much as a straight man can love another man.”