New Trump human resources czar distances himself from Elon Musk

WASHINGTON - The new chief of the agency spearheading efforts to slash the federal workforce said on July 21 he had no personal ties to tech billionaire and former Trump adviser Elon Musk, pledging to faithfully execute US President Donald Trump’s agenda.

“I have zero personal relationship with Elon Musk. I have talked to Elon Musk once on the phone in my life,” Mr Scott Kupor, who was sworn in to lead the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) earlier in July, told reporters.

The comments underscored lingering questions about the loyalties of Silicon Valley tech entrepreneurs among Trump administration officials following a public spat between Mr Trump and Mr Musk that led to a deep rift between the two former allies.

Mr Kupor said he had told Mr Trump and other people in the White House that “my job is to do the agenda that the President lays out to the best I can”.

“But I’m not going to do it consistent with someone else’s objectives that are inconsistent with what the President wants to do,” he added.

Mr Musk, who spent over a quarter of a billion dollars to help Mr Trump win November’s presidential election, led the Department of Government Efficiency’s 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.

While Mr Trump hailed Mr Musk’s 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 Mr Musk was disappointed by Mr Isaacman’s removal.

The President also threatened to cancel billions of dollars worth of contracts between the federal government and Mr Musk’s companies after Mr Musk denounced Mr Trump’s tax-cut and spending Bill as a “disgusting abomination”.

Prior to taking the helm at OPM, Mr Kupor was a partner at Silicon Valley-based venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, which invests in Mr Musk’s artificial intelligence start-up xAI as well as SpaceX.

Some government officials feared Mr Kupor’s nomination could be another casualty of the dust-up between Mr Trump and Mr Musk, since he was nominated in December and won a favourable committee vote in April, but did not get a full Senate confirmation vote until July.

On July 21, Mr Kupor was also asked about plans for a surprise government-wide e-mail introduced by Mr Musk in February demanding that workers summarise five things they achieved at work in the previous week, which sparked tensions with department chiefs and fuelled confusion among government workers.

Describing the processing of the weekly response e-mails as “very manual” and “not efficient”, Mr Kupor said the initiative was “something that we should look at and see, like, are we getting the value out of it that at least the people who put it in place thought they were”.

Reuters reported in March that the White House installed two Trump loyalists at OPM to ensure better policy coordination between the White House and the agency after Mr Musk blindsided White House officials with the introduction of the e-mail. REUTERS