Rubio’s Slow-Rolling Power Play

In late February, Secretary of State Marco Rubio quietly met with Elon Musk to discuss the future of the State Department and what was left of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The previously unreported meeting was cordial, some even say lighthearted. But the two men had some clear differences. Musk, the world’s richest man now serving as a top adviser to President Donald Trump, wanted major cuts — and fast — at the State Department. Rubio said he was fine with big cuts, but he wasn’t inclined to rush them through. He was already dealing with the fallout of Musk acolytes’ rapid dismantling of USAID, not to mention an array of global crises. He believed the changes at State should be more thought-out and methodical.

That meeting ended with the two men on good terms, according to a person familiar with the situation and a Trump administration official close to Rubio who described it to me. But last week, the two once again aired their differences, this time in front of Trump. The official close to Rubio said the second meeting, which included others in the Cabinet, was calmer than portrayed in the initial New York Times account. But the official didn’t dispute the substance of the report, which had the pair sparring over the number of people being pushed out at State and Rubio making his case for how to best handle the department’s restructuring. In that meeting last week, Musk reportedly accused Rubio of firing a Department of Government Efficiency staffer.

Given the many global challenges it is tackling, “nobody wants the State Department to be in a position where USAID was, where it had difficulty operating,” the official insisted. (I granted the official and others interviewed anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue.)

For Rubio, though, the fight over the future structure of the State Department isn’t just about protecting America’s ability to engage in diplomacy. It’s about protecting what power he has in the Trump administration.

This is, after all, a team of many rivals. Rubio is the chief U.S. diplomat, but an array of other Trump appointees are competing to shape the administration’s foreign policy, from Musk to multiple special envoys. As Musk eyes his department, Rubio has realized he needs to both draw lines and walk some very fine ones.

It doesn’t help that Rubio’s past foreign policy views have frequently clashed with Trump’s vision. It means Rubio is now taking stances at odds with his reputation, such as slamming the foreign minister of Poland this week.

“He's in this awkward situation,” said Gerald Feierstein, a former career diplomat who served as U.S. ambassador to Yemen. “He's doing things that he fundamentally believes are bad policy and bad steps. He's got to go along with it because Musk and Trump are standing between him and his higher ambition of being president.”

I did not expect to write this often about Rubio (this is my third column on him in two months), and he is far from the only Cabinet member dealing with blowback from moves made by Musk and his aides. But Rubio is drawing unusual interest because USAID’s brutal takedown was so early in Trump’s term, because of the national security implications of slashing the State Department and because he’s already seen as one of the weaker Trump appointees.

To remedy the last perception, Rubio has taken advantage of what the secretary of State’s perch offers — not the least of which is access to a ready press pool — to show he can score wins for Trump.

He’s deeply involved in talks about ending Russia’s war on Ukraine; he has pushed, with some success, Panama to distance itself from China amid Trump’s threats of a Panama Canal takeover; and he has helped enforce Trump’s immigration crackdown. Already, he’s spent a significant amount of time on the road, carrying the Trump banner everywhere from the Munich Security Conference to Israel.

At times, Rubio has seemed out of place.

His couch-sinking silence as Trump and Vice President JD Vance berated Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy helped inspire a "Saturday Night Live" parody. Still, Rubio has tried to dispel suspicions that he disagrees with Trump, going on television repeatedly to defend positions he would never have taken when he was a senator.

Rubio has even publicly supported dismantling USAID. But he didn’t have much say in it. By the time Rubio was named USAID’s acting administrator, Musk, DOGE and Trump political appointee Pete Marocco had largely unraveled the institution.

It was Rubio, though, who took much of the resulting heat from Capitol Hill, the courts and his own workforce, even as he never gained control of the USAID situation. (He did, however, protect some programs, saving about 400 that DOGE wanted to cut.)

The State Department is different — and Rubio is less willing to sacrifice it the way he did USAID.

Rubio agrees, in principle, with major changes, including staff reductions and closing some diplomatic facilities. But he wants to restructure the department in a way that satisfies Trump and keeps Musk at bay but safeguards his main base of power. If he lets Musk and DOGE eliminate huge chunks of State without a serious strategy, he will only weaken the department and himself. Foreign officials trying to understand Trump administration dynamics are among those watching closely and asking people like myself if Rubio is the best point of contact.

“Rubio wants to be a diplomat,” the person familiar with the situation said. “Everything DOGE does creates problems for him in terms of diplomacy.”

Although lists of consulates to close and staffers to fire have been circulating for weeks, Rubio still hasn’t acted, frustrating Musk.

Some Rubio aides and people at the National Security Council tried last week to push out Marocco, who is not in DOGE but is a lead figure in dismantling USAID. Rubio, however, sided with other senior administration officials who wanted to keep Marocco, according to the person familiar with the situation.

The official close to Rubio denied there was any such attempt. Marocco’s team emailed me a statement from him in which he called Trump and Rubio “historic patriots” and said it was the “honor of a lifetime” to serve the pair to “reform and realign foreign assistance,” but he did not address questions about his job.

The official further urged patience — a hard ask of U.S. diplomats who fear for their jobs and livelihoods.

“Good, substantive reforms take time,” the official said. “The president's been pretty clear that there need to be significant changes in the way that the federal government is organized. I think every Cabinet secretary is going about that in their own specific way to make sure those changes are smart, they stick and that core capabilities and functions are retained.”

The State Department declined to comment, but a senior official there stressed that Musk and Rubio have a “great relationship” and are working together “to correct the failures of the last administration.”

Musk did not respond to my request for comment.

Trump is trying to appease all sides. During last week’s meeting, he told Cabinet members they get to run their agencies but also said Musk would serve as an enforcer to ensure cuts take place.

The president also has insisted that Rubio and Musk get along just fine. “ELON AND MARCO HAVE A GREAT RELATIONSHIP. ANY STATEMENT OTHER THAN THAT IS FAKE NEWS!!!” Trump posted this weekend on Truth Social.

Rubio and Musk are now trying to publicly show that’s true.

Rubio used social media to thank DOGE for slashing USAID’s programs, to which Musk replied that it was “good” working with Rubio. White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt noted to reporters that the pair attended dinner with Trump at Mar-a-Lago on Saturday.

And Rubio and Musk took to social media this weekend to gang up on Radosław Sikorski, the foreign minister of Poland, a U.S. ally.

After Musk said that Ukraine’s front line could collapse if he turned off his Starlink satellite services, Sikorski noted that his country was paying for those services and might have to find other providers if they were turned off.

Rubio dismissed Sikorski as “making up” the threat and told him to “say thank you” for Starlink. Musk piled on: “Be quiet, small man.”

Perhaps beating up on common enemies — a group that these days includes U.S. allies — is the glue that will bond Rubio and Musk together going forward.

That said, the secretary of State has some tough choices ahead as he restructures his department. He has managed to slow-roll Musk on that front for now, but we’ll see how long the forced bonhomie lasts.