Musk’s Washington

A close look at how Elon Musk is trying to transform the government.

Good evening. Tonight, we’re covering how the Trump administration is assessing ways to bolster the birthrate — a key concern of Elon Musk’s. We’ll also look back at the time he met the Pope. The news is first.

White House birthrate boosters see an ally in Musk

	By Jess Bidgood

Elon Musk might be this country’s most famous pronatalist.

He has a well-documented obsession with the declining birthrate, which he believes could doom humanity. “Unless that changes,” he told Bret Baier last month, “civilization will disappear.”

He has also taken this on as something of a personal mission. Musk has at least 14 children with several women, according to The Wall Street Journal, which reported that he calls his offspring his “legion,” after the armies with which ancient Rome expanded its empire. And he has built a compound in Texas to house his family, as my colleagues Kirsten Grind, Ryan Mac and Sheera Frenkel reported last year.

Musk also sees the nation’s birthrate as a pressing issue of public policy. “It should be considered a national emergency to have kids,” he posted on X last June. He has also said that people should be taught to fear childlessness rather than fearing pregnancy.

He’s part of a movement of conservatives who want more people to have more babies, and who believe that policy can encourage this. It’s a movement that has never had so much political power in America.

My colleague Caroline Kitchener has a fascinating story today that explores how pronatalism is weaving itself into the West Wing and beyond. Trump aides are hearing out proposals that would offer financial incentives for women to give birth — including an idea for a $5,000 “baby bonus” — or promote more education about women’s menstrual cycles and fertility windows.

Sean Duffy, the secretary of transportation, has pledged to prioritize transportation funding to areas with higher rates of birth and marriage. And White House aides, Caroline reported, are preparing a report for mid-May about how to make I.V.F. more widely accessible.

It’s not clear that Musk himself has actually been involved in any of those discussions. But the simple fact of his presence in the administration — as well as that of Vice President JD Vance, who has said he wants “more babies in the United States of America” — is enormously encouraging to those who want their cause to hit the mainstream.

“I just think this administration is inherently pronatalist,” Simone Collins, an activist who sent the White House several proposals to lift the birthrate, told Caroline. She added, “Look at the number of kids that major leaders in the administration have.”

Pronatalism is a complex movement, and not every supporter favors Elon Musk’s approach. Many of those pushing for higher birthrates are motivated not by fears for the fate of humankind, but by faith — and by their belief in two-parent households as society’s fundamental building block.

That has led to some discomfort with Musk’s reliance on I.V.F., as well as with his unconventional family life. Last month, Roger Severino, the vice president for domestic policy at the Heritage Foundation, told my colleague Lydia DePillis that Musk shouldn’t be held up as a role model.

“Babies aren’t to be treated as commodities,” he said.

Read more: How Trump aides are assessing ways to raise the birthrate.

INSIDE THE WEST WING

Where is Musk’s desk?

Location, location, location.

My colleagues Junho Lee, Elena Shao, Maggie Haberman and Doug Mills have pulled together a comprehensive look at who sits where in the West Wing — and naturally I wanted to know where Musk sits.

He and employees of the Department of Government Efficiency occupy the grand Secretary of War suite in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next door to the White House. But Musk also has a small room on the second floor of the West Wing, next to the top presidential speechwriter and two doors down from Stephen Miller, the powerful deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser.

See the full layout here.

MEANWHILE ON X

That time Elon Musk met the pope

Musk has slowed his online activity somewhat lately, but there is often much beneath the surface of his posts. My colleague Kate Conger takes a look under the hood of one.

On a day when X was filled with tributes to Pope Francis, Elon Musk didn’t mention the pope’s death directly. Instead, he reposted without comment a message from Tim Cook, Apple’s chief executive: “Joining people around the world in mourning Pope Francis today. He lived a life of extraordinary grace and deep compassion. May he rest in peace.”

But Musk has a bit of history with Pope Francis. In July 2022, Musk took four of his children to meet the pope and wrote on X that he was “honored” by the visit.

Since then, the ideological gap between Musk and the pope has widened into a gulf. Francis pushed for diversity and inclusion in the Catholic church, while Musk has raged against similar initiatives in tech and has worked to eradicate them from government.

And while Vice President JD Vance met with Pope Francis on Sunday, Musk chose to highlight another meeting instead. On Monday, he shared a post by Vance about his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India. “I look forward to working under President Trump’s leadership to strengthen our friendship and cooperation with the people of India!” Vance had written.

The repost was a subtle reminder that Musk himself had met with Modi earlier this year.

Musk also shared a post claiming that X was the No. 1 news app in India. He added: “Cool.”

— Kate Conger

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