Elon Musk compared people’s reaction to as though they had “rabies” and waved his hands in the air like a zombie.

The tech billionaire who is in the was speaking in the first interview the pair have given together since the election. It is set to be aired in full later tonight.

Musk laughed at the way he used to be “adored” by the left but said they now suffer from ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ - the condition he likened to rabies.

Despite Trump’s resounding presidential victory, the US remains extremely divided and there is plenty of concern about steps the new administration has taken from immigration to the war with . And not least over the power that with the newly created Department of Government Efficiency, nicknamed DOGE. In the interview with Fox News, the host Sean Hannity stated: “I would think liberals would love the fact that you have the biggest electric vehicle company in the .”

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And Musk replied: “I used to be adored by the left, less so these days.” He continued “They call it Trump derangement syndrome, and you don't realise how real this is until, it’s like you can't reason with people.”

Musk described how he was at a friend’s birthday dinner when the subject of Trump came up. “It was a nice quiet dinner, everyone was behaving normally, and I happened to mention, this was before the election, just a week or two before … happened to mention the president’s name. It was like they got shot with a dart in the jugular that contained methamphetamine and rabies.”

He then started waving his arms around in the air in the manner of a zombie. “Like, guys? You can’t have, like, a normal conversation,” he continued. “It’s like they become completely irrational.” Hannity then turned to Trump who claimed that left-leaning media was trying to drive Musk and him apart.

“Elon called me, he said ‘They’re trying to drive us apart’ and I said ‘absolutely,” Trump revealed. “They said, ‘We have breaking news, has ceded control of the presidency to Elon Musk. President Musk will be attending a cabinet meeting tonight at 8 o’clock’.”

Meanwhile, the White House has moved to say that Musk is not the administrator of the Department of Government Efficiency but is rather a senior advisor to Trump. Musk’s exact role could be key in the legal fight over DOGE’s access to government data as the Trump administration moves to lay off thousands of federal workers. Defining him as an adviser rather that the person in charge of day-to-day operations at DOGE could help the administration beat a lawsuit arguing Musk has too much power for someone who isn’t elected or Senate-confirmed.

The declaration was filed Monday as the Trump administration fends off the lawsuit from several Democratic states that want to block Musk and the DOGE team from accessing government systems. The litigants say Musk is wielding “virtually unchecked power” in violation of the Constitution.

The Trump administration, on the other hand, says Musk has “no actual authority to make government decisions himself,” Joshua Fisher, director of the White House Office of Administration, said in court papers. The documents do not name the administrator of DOGE, whose work Musk has championed in posts on his social-media platform X and in a public appearance at the White House.

The DOGE team has roamed from agency to agency, tapping into computer systems, digging into budgets and searching for waste, fraud and abuse, while lawsuits pile up claiming Trump and DOGE are violating the law. At least two are targeting Musk himself.

US District Judge Tanya Chutkan seemed skeptical in a hearing Monday when Justice Department lawyers asserted that Musk has no formal authority. “I think you stretch too far. I disagree with you there,” Ms Chutkan said.