One of Elon Musk’s closest friends, a billionaire co-founder of Airbnb, is taking a role in President Trump’s administration to help Mr. Musk carry out his drive to slash the federal bureaucracy, according to a person with knowledge of the matter.
Joe Gebbia, the Airbnb co-founder, is a board member at Tesla who lives in Austin, where Mr. Musk, Tesla’s chief executive, keeps a large compound. He is planning to start shortly in the federal government as part of Mr. Musk’s team, which has been called the Department of Government Efficiency, according to the person with knowledge of the matter.
It is not clear what precisely Mr. Gebbia will do or how formal his role will be. Many members of Mr. Musk’s government-overhaul effort float among agencies depending on the day’s tasks. Many of them consider their center of gravity to be the Office of Personnel Management or the General Services Administration.
Mr. Musk and his allies have taken over the United States Digital Service, now renamed the “United States DOGE Service.” The agency was established in 2014 to fix the federal government’s online services. Many of his foot soldiers are young software engineers with no government experience who have parachuted into federal agencies seeking to overhaul or even dismantle them.
Mr. Gebbia was until recently a Democratic donor, spending over $200,000 each to boost Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the 2016 and 2020 general elections, and $20,000 to support Mr. Biden’s re-election run in 2023.
Mr. Gebbia has said his politics have shifted toward Republicans, in major part because of the advocacy of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Mr. Gebbia considers a political ally. Mr. Gebbia attended Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation hearing last month, writing on X that morning that it was a “big day ahead for the future of health in America.”
Mr. Gebbia did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday evening.
Mr. Trump has embraced leaders and donors in the tech industry, and many in Silicon Valley have rallied around him since he won the presidency.
In a post on X the day before Mr. Trump’s inauguration, Mr. Gebbia said he had voted for Democrats dating back to Al Gore in 2000 but acknowledged supporting Mr. Trump in November. “I did a bad thing. Something the younger me would hate myself for doing. Something that only a few people (and maybe ByteDance) know: I voted Republican last November,” he wrote, referring to TikTok’s parent.
Mr. Gebbia’s net worth approaches $9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, thanks to his shares in Airbnb, which he founded in 2008. One of Mr. Gebbia’s co-founders, Brian Chesky, the C.E.O., has developed a close relationship with former President Barack Obama. But Mr. Gebbia has been considered among the three founders to have the most interest in — and time for — politics. He was originally the company’s chief product officer and has gradually stepped away from company operations to focus on personal pursuits, such as his stake in the N.B.A. team the San Antonio Spurs. He remains on Airbnb’s board.
Mr. Gebbia, whose background like Mr. Chesky’s is in industrial design, has become one of Mr. Musk’s closest friends in recent years. Mr. Musk had discussed buying a home from Mr. Gebbia’s new startup, Samara, and Mr. Gebbia’s texts to Mr. Musk have come up in recent Musk-related litigation. Mr. Musk frequently engages with Mr. Gebbia on X.
Mr. Gebbia has also posted admiringly on X about Mr. Musk’s new project in Washington, writing shortly after the election that there was a “historic corporate turnaround about to take place: DOGE.” This week, he praised the Musk team’s efforts to claw back $80 million that the Federal Emergency Management Agency had sent to New York City to cover some of the costs of housing migrants.
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