BBC News, in Erie, Pennsylvania
Seated around a breakfast table in Erie, Pennsylvania, four veterans in their mid-80s – John, Jack, Bob and Don – gather to reminisce about their decades of friendship.
But it is another Don, this one in his late 70s, who keeps creeping into their conversation: President Donald Trump.
Of the four, only Bob voted for Trump. But after seeing Elon Musk standing next to the Republican president in the Oval Office this week, defending his efforts to slash the size and spending of the federal government, he is already doubting his decision.
“I’m afraid of him,” Bob says of Musk. “I think he’s trying to be president.”
Erie County was one of the key battlegrounds that helped swing the 2024 presidential election in Trump’s favour. The Republican won 50.1% of the vote here just four years after his Democratic rival Joe Biden narrowly took the county.
And part of Trump’s winning platform was a clear promise to overhaul and upend the federal government, pledging on the campaign trail to deliver “trillions” in cuts if elected. Polls indicated that was popular with Republican voters, and that remains the case now.
What was less clear to voters before the election was just how much of a frontline role Musk would play in this administration. The 53-year-old owner of Tesla, SpaceX and X now leads the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge) which is dedicated to shrinking government and is routinely pictured alongside the president.
Members of his team have entered various departments to monitor spending and offered millions of workers an exit route. They have moved to freeze federal funding as well as the work of agencies such as the US Agency for International Development (USAID) in a blizzard of activity in recent weeks.
But given the scale of Musk’s influence in the nascent Trump administration, Democrats are concerned about conflicts of interest as well as Musk, whose companies have billions in federal government contracts, potentially taking actions to benefit himself.
“This is dangerous. This is against America’s interests,” Senior Democrat Chuck Schumer said. “And President Trump needs to show some leadership and reign in Doge before it inflicts more harm.”
That concern was shared by John Pelinsky, a lifelong Democrat who in November’s election cast his ballot for Donald Trump. He said Democrats had swung too far to the left and he wanted four years of Trump to help “centre the country”.
While he does not regret his vote, he says Musk makes him feel uneasy.
“He had his little kid there with him in the Oval Office,” he said. “I’m not quite comfortable with that.”
“I think Musk’s influence might be a little too much on the president,” he added. “I’m seeing too much of him. He should just stick with his SpaceX and his electric cars.”
Musk, meanwhile, has been clear that he believes he is working to enact the wishes of Trump’s voters.
“The people voted for major government reform and that’s what the people are going to get,” he told reporters during a surprise White House appearance this week. “That’s what democracy is all about.”
A recent poll by the BBC’s US partner CBS News suggested a majority of Americans were in favour of Musk’s work but disagreed over how much influence he should have.
In Erie, plenty of supporters were thrilled to see not one billionaire businessman, but two, running the show in Washington.
Christine Barber shrugged off concerns and said the American people had elected Trump to run the country and he had appointed Musk to help him do that.
“Personally, I love him,” she said of Musk.
“Financially, and from a business perspective, we need somebody who knows what the heck they’re doing. And if anybody does, it’s Donald Trump and Elon Musk.”
Patrick Laughlan had a similar view. He said he trusted Trump and Musk “to the extent you can trust anybody you don’t know”.
“The guy’s obviously brilliant,” Laughlan said of Musk. “He’s doing a good job trying to get rid of waste. Both of those gentlemen are trying to get money back to Americans.”
Evan Lagace, a restaurant manager here, embraces Musk’s cuts to a system he views as bloated and inefficient. He said he appreciated that the tech billionaire was “donating his time to the country to help fix a major problem”.
“Like he did in a micro aspect with Twitter, he could hopefully do the same thing with our country,” Lagace said, referring to the mass layoffs and spending cuts Musk implemented after buying the social media company.
As for the accusations that Musk had grown too powerful in this White House, Lagace said it did not bother him.
“He’s already extremely powerful,” he said. “It makes no difference.”
