Lutnick currently serves as chair of Trump’s White House transition team. His most notable moment in recent memory was his declaration on CNN that Robert F Kennedy Jr, the vaccine conspiracist and Covid lockdown critic, would not be Trump’s pick for head of Health and Human Services. Trump nominated Kennedy to that very post last week.

Musk's newfound influence in the Trump world comes as regulators are grappling with the myriad of cutting-edge technologies his companies are developing.