CNN
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Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club was packed with two types of people over the past 48 hours: those looking for a job in the newly elected president’s incoming administration, and those trying to influence him to endorse their candidates for to take the top positions.

But the one person who has thought about all of this and exerted much influence is Elon Musk, according to multiple sources. The tech billionaire has been seen at the Palm Beach, Florida, resort almost every day since Trump won the election last week, dining with him on the patio some evenings and hanging out with his family on the golf course on Sundays.

Musk was in the room when several world leaders called Trump, and he has weighed in on personnel decisions, with the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla even making clear his preference for certain roles.

In one instance, Musk was with Trump at Mar-a-Lago when Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called to congratulate the president-elect the day after the election, according to a source briefed on the call. Trump put the call on loudspeaker and Zelensky thanked Musk for his help in providing communications with Ukraine through the billionaire’s Starlink internet service.

On Sunday, Musk waded into the Republican Senate leadership battle, endorsing Sen. Rick Scott after the Florida Republican quickly backed Trump’s demand that anyone vying to become leader support recess appointments for his nominees — a way for presidents to try to bypass Congress that Democrats in the Senate could effectively block.

Musk is close not only to Trump, but also to his co-chair of the transition, Howard Lutnick – the billionaire CEO of financial services firm Cantor Fitzgerald who is leading the personnel side of the transition.

Sources have described Trump as having a crush on Musk.

“We have to protect our geniuses, we don’t have that many,” the president-elect said during his victory speech early Wednesday morning.

While Musk himself is not formally expected to take a position in Trump’s administration, he isn’t really required to, one source said, noting that X’s owner has just as much outside influence.

While Trump and Musk had publicly pitched the latter as leader of an efficiency commission to cut spending within the federal government, CNN reported Thursday that a source familiar with the conversations surrounding Musk said it seemed unlikely that he would even hold a full-time government position want, given the circumstances, that would mean for his role in the companies he leads.

Instead, it seemed more likely that Musk would be appointed to a blue-ribbon committee, where he would still have vast access but not be subject to government ethics rules that would require him to divest assets or place it in a blind trust to avoid conflicts of interest.

By mid-October, Musk had donated nearly $119 million to a political action committee he created to support Trump, according to Federal Election Commission filings. He also appeared with Trump at rallies and hosted a friendly interview with him on X, his social media platform.

Musk’s big bet on Trump paid off almost immediately. The day after the election, investors sent Tesla shares up nearly 15%. That increased the value of the 411 million shares Musk directly owns by more than $15 billion and marked a two-year high for Tesla shares as a whole.

CNNs Tara JohannesVictoria Butenko, Nic Robertson, Kristen Holmes, Kristen Holmes, Jeremy Herb, Kayla Tausche, Evan Perez, Chris Isidore and Jack Forrest contributed to this report.