"He's a leader, he gets it done": Donald Trump praises Elon Musk, hails his tech foresight

Feb 19, 2025

Washington DC [US], February 19 : US President Donald Trump on Tuesday (US Local Time) lauded Tesla CEO Elon Musk as the smartest person to work for the US and praised his technological prowess, drawing special attention to Starlink and gave Musk a go-ahead for bringing back two American astronauts, who have been in the International Space Station.
He made the remarks during an exclusive interview to Fox News, where both the US President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk answered some of the most pressing concerns.
Talking about how media had attacked the duo time and again, US President Trump said, "They tried it. Then they stopped. Actually, Elon called me. He said, you know, they're trying to drive us apart... They said, 'We have breaking news. Donald Trump has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting tonight at 8 o'clock'... It's just so obvious. They're so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it. They're actually bad at it, because if they were good at it, I'd never be president, because I think nobody in history has ever gotten more bad publicity than me. But you know what I have learned, Elon? The people are smart. They get it. They get it. They really see what's happening."
Speaking about his relationship with Elon Musk, Donald Trump said, "I respect him. I've always respected him. I never knew that he was right on certain things. And I'm usually pretty good at this stuff. He did Starlink. He did things that were so advanced that nobody knew what the hell they were".
Trump shared the example of how people of disaster-hit North Carolina requested for access to Starlink, which the US President was previously unaware of.
"I called him (Musk) and I said, listen, they really need it. And he got like thousands of units of this communication and it saved a lot of lives. He got it immediately, and I said, that's pretty amazing", Donald Trump said.
Trump shared how Elon Musk brought to his attention that a lot of executive orders don't get implemented. "I wanted somebody really smart to work with me in terms of the country... He's a leader. Yeah. He gets it done. I wanted to find somebody smarter than him. I searched all over. I just couldn't do it. I couldn't find anyone smarter for the country. But this is the thing. We settled on this guy", he said.
Speaking about the American astronauts in space, NASA's Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore, Musk said, "At the President's request or instruction, we are accelerating the return of the astronauts, which was postponed kind of to a ridiculous degree. They got left in space. They've been there. They were supposed to be there for eight days. They're there almost 300."
Musk said that in four weeks they will bring back the astronauts.
"And you have the go-ahead. We're bringing them", US President Trump said.