On a Saturday morning in December 2022, Elon Musk summoned finance executives at Twitter, which he had bought six weeks earlier, to a conference call. Then he drilled into a spreadsheet that contained the social media company’s expenditures.

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

The head of Tesla, SpaceX and the X social media site once known as Twitter has strengthened his ties to the Silver State over the years.