Elon Musk, founder of companies like Tesla, Neuralink, and SpaceX, was a figurehead of the second Trump White House long before Inauguration Day. Although he has recently left his unofficial/official position in the federal government, Musk has certainly left his mark on Trump’s second term, even in a short amount of time. His work as the head of the newly minted Department of Governmental Efficiency (or DOGE) was responsible for laying off tens of thousands of federal employees, cancelling more than 8,500 contracts and 10,000 grants, and claiming to have saved up to $180B in federal spending, amid accusations of inflating those numbers and crossing the line in terms of data privacy. Regardless of the exact number, it is well short of the promised $2 trillion.
It feels like we don’t need to open this newsletter with an explanation of DOGE and Elon Musk, because everyone should have heard about this by now, right? Well, data from Trendency’s national panel of registered voters suggests we may be in a bit of a bubble, as just about half (56%) say they’re very familiar with DOGE, while 15% say they have little knowledge, and 29% are in the middle. With Trump and Musk’s huge blowout fight recently, we anticipate more people are tuning in, but what does this mean for Americans, and how does it affect their viewpoint of what’s going on in the country right now?
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Starting off with a view of Trump and Musk’s relationship, the average American voter is most likely to say they don’t agree with either of them in this argument when given the ability to allocate between the percent of time they tend to agree with Trump, Musk, or neither. This viewpoint is stronger among Democrats, women, White voters, and younger voters (Table 1). Meanwhile, Republicans are the only demographic group to stand with Trump more than the other two options, while Independents, men, Black/African American, and Latino/Hispanic voters are more likely to side with Musk than Trump (although most of these groups are still more likely to say they agree with neither).
Breaking down the distribution of opinion (which highlights the percentage of respondents who answer a certain way on the 0-100 scale) shows that nearly half of voters (45%) strongly feel that they agree with neither Trump nor Musk (80-100 points) (Figure 2). This is compared to just about 1 out of 10 voters who strongly side with Trump (15%) or Musk (11%) in their latest spat.
There have been plenty of questions raised about the veracity of Musk’s influence in the Oval Office, with one Axios article calling him the “most powerful (unelected) man ever.” However, most American voters believe that Trump held a majority of the decision-making power in the White House while Musk was around. However, this opinion is extremely partisan in nature; Republicans are the most likely to give Trump credit, while Democrats believe Musk’s power in the White House outweighed Trump’s by 2:1 (Figure 3). Additionally, women, Americans under 45, and Black/African American voters are more likely to say that both men held fairly equal power during the first few months of the administration.
How This Impacts Americans’ Worldview
Direction of Country
Trendency has been asking registered voters in its national panel since 2017 how they feel things are going nationwide. In general, the average American voter feels that things are headed in the wrong direction, with about 2 out of 5 (42%) leaning this way. When we break it down based on how panelists answered the two questions about Trump and Musk we dived into earlier, things get interesting
Overall, voters who agree with Trump more or say they agree with neither him nor Musk are more likely to say the country is headed in the wrong direction (Figure 4). Meanwhile, voters who agree with Musk more sit on the fence, leaning slightly towards saying things are on the right track. While there is a slight difference based on who voters think held more power during the first few months of the administration, it’s less drastic, although it’s also ironic that voters who thought Musk had more power are more likely to think things are headed in the wrong direction. This is our first indication in the data that thinking Musk had more power in the White House does not equate to agreeing with him in his public fight with Trump.
Views differ the most between voters siding with Trump or Musk in this social media spat, and trendlines offer an interesting window of insight into these two groups over the past seven years (Figure 5). Opinions on the direction of the US were tumultuous for both groups throughout 2019, 2020, and the beginning of 2021, which can most likely be attributed in large part to the partisan nature of the two groups.
However, the beginning of 2021 (which also coincides with Joe Biden’s inauguration as the 46th President) marked a departure in opinion. Those who agree with Trump now quickly became more likely to say the country was headed in the wrong direction, while this belief decreased among voters currently siding with Musk. While those on Trump’s side were nearly unanimous in their belief that things were getting worse, voters on Musk’s side were more split and would continue to feel that way throughout the next few years. For Trump’s supporters in this latest fight, things began improving almost immediately following the November 5, 2024, general election, when Trump was declared the winner over then-Vice President Kamala Harris. While these voters are still more likely to believe things are heading in the wrong direction than they are on the right track, this gap is quickly closing in.
Trendency data utilizes averages often, as we prefer to ask questions in a non-binary fashion, usually on a 0-100 scale or using 100 “allocation points.” However, averages don’t always tell the full story, which is the case when looking at this question. In Figure 4, one might assume that voters who side with Trump in his fight with Musk and voters who say they agree with neither man are on the same page when it comes to the direction the US is headed. The trendlines, however, show that the opposite is true.
At this point, these two groups of voters – those who side with Trump and those who disagree with both him and Musk – are in the process of crossing paths in their opinions on this country (Figure 6). While those who disagree with both men have also been more likely to be split on this issue, somewhat similar to voters siding with Musk, they have been growing more disgruntled with the state of the union over the past three years. This opinion, however, took off almost immediately after Trump won last year’s general election. At the same time, as we mentioned for Figure 5, voters siding with Trump have become more optimistic since then.
Personal Financial Situation
Another long-running question on Trendency’s national panel gauges registered voters’ feelings towards their own personal financial situations. In general, the average American voter falls somewhere in the middle of the scale (56 out of 100), with about one-quarter feeling very secure (27% answering 80 or higher) and slightly less feeling completely insecure (15% answering below 20). When this data is based on who voters side with during Trump and Musk’s recent (and we can’t stress this enough: very public) fight paints another interesting picture, one that is heavily dependent on inauguration dates from both 2021 and 2025.
Looking back as far as 2018 shows us that there is little overall difference in the average answer to this question depending on who voters side with between 2022 and the beginning of 2025 (Figure 7). However, movement over the past seven years shows that voters who currently side with Trump have experienced the most volatility; after feeling the most confident in their financial situations for most of 2018, all of 2019, and parts of 2020, we can argue that their feelings of financial wellness were intimately connected to the federal government’s executive branch figurehead, as averages began to tank over the course of Biden’s presidency. Their average answer peaked just below 75 out of 100 at the beginning of 2021 before falling nearly 25 points by Q3 of 2024. But, just like in 2021, the selection of a new president switched this around entirely, with the average among this group recovering by about 14 points since last year’s general election.
Voters who either side with Musk in this fight or agree with neither man followed a similar pattern to each other throughout most of the last seven years, although those siding with Musk had periods throughout 2019, 2021, and 2024 where they felt slightly more confident (Figure 8). In a directly opposite trend of voters siding with Trump, their personal financial wellness dropped almost immediately after Trump won the presidency last November.
Zeroing in on the past eight months highlights these differences, largely originating with last year’s general election (Figure 8). While movement has been fairly steady over the past seven to eight months, it appears that mid-March was also a crucial moment for both groups. Averages dropped instantaneously among voters siding with Musk or neither and have not recovered, while the average among voters siding with Trump stopped growing.
Breaking out the distribution of opinion again shows that there’s a wide mix of views on voters’ personal financial situations, regardless of who they side with in this latest fight (Figure 9). Those who are siding with Musk are the most likely to rate their financial situation negatively, with 39% answering below 40. Those who agree with neither Trump nor Musk aren’t far behind, with nearly one-third answering the same way (31%). Voters siding with Trump are the most likely to feel positively, with 3 out of 5 of these voters (60%) answering 60 or higher on the 0-100
Where DOGE Fits In
The data points to an early conclusion that voters do not completely equate DOGE with Elon Musk, despite him running it for the first few months. The average American voter is much more likely to say they disapprove of the government agency than they approve of it (52 vs. 37 points), although this varies depending on demographics (Table 2). Women, younger voters, and Black/African American voters are the most likely to disapprove of DOGE, while Latino/Hispanic voters and men appear more amenable to the agency’s efforts.
What might be most shocking or at least provides the most evidence to the conclusion provided above, is that the Trump administration has succeeded in making DOGE an entity separate from Musk. This is the only conclusion we can really rationalize when looking at the numbers from Table 3, as voters who both side with Trump in his fight with Musk and voters who believe Trump has had more power compared to Musk in the Oval Office are much more likely to approve of DOGE than voters who side with Musk do.
In Conclusion
Agree or disagree on the issues, it’s fair to say that the first few months of Trump’s second administration have been chaotic, and many have suggested that this latest feud between Trump and Musk could be fodder for distraction from bigger issues, like escalating ICE raids and what the “big beautiful bill” they were arguing about really means for the average American. The data shows that Americans’ views on a variety of other issues, from the direction of the country in general to their own financial situations, are connected to how they interpret events and narratives coming out of the White House. And, although he may not be an official part of the federal government at this point, Elon Musk still holds influence one way or the other.
