Donald Trump's dig at Time magazine over Elon Musk cover: ‘Still in business?’

The latest cover of Time magazine shows Elon Musk seated at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office with a coffee cup in hand.

Time magazine's latest print cover featuring Elon Musk in the Oval Office, caused President Donald Trump to snap at the publication amid rumours of the Space X potentially taking over the presidency in the future.

Elon Musk features on the Time magazine cover(Time/X)

The cover of the magazine shows Elon Musk seated at the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office with a coffee cup in hand, the American flag and presidential flag on either side of his chair, against a red background.

Donald Trump, during a meeting with Japan's Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba, was asked whether he had any comment about the cover and said, "Is Time's magazine still in business? I didn’t even know that."

Time magazine in its cover story on the billionaire CEO, titled "Inside Elon Musk's War on Washington", noted the significance of Elon Musk's new role in the administration and his impact on policy decisions as head of the Department of Government Efficiency's (DOGE).

After Donald Trump assumed office on January 20, he handed Musk the power to clean up the bureaucracy of the government, leading to efforts toward dismantling of agencies such as US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Department of Education.

In the story, the authors say that "millions of government workers find themselves at Musk’s mercy".

The publication added, "So far, Musk appears accountable to no one but President Trump, who handed his campaign benefactor a sweeping mandate to bring the government in line with his agenda. DOGE directed all of Time's questions about its work to the White House, which declined to comment."

Though Donald Trump has also graced the cover twice, he controversially fabricated an issue of the magazine to praise his reality TV show, ‘The Apprentice.’

Since December, Trump has denied the increasing number of rumours of Elon Musk taking over the presidency, saying that the South African tech magnate could not constitutionally take on the post.

According to the US Constitution, a person has to be a naturalised American citizen to become the President.