The United States of America President, Donald Trump, has criticized TIME magazine for using billionaire Elon Musk’s photo on its cover.

The American magazine on Friday shows Mr Musk sitting on U.S president resolute table, insinuating the ‘President Musk’ narrative as the cover story unravelled Mr Musk’s war on Washington as well as questioning how the Tesla CEO enjoys power that no businessman ever had.

It also questioned how he was only accountable to the president believed to have handed the business mogul the mandate to bring the government in line with his agenda.

However, the narrative did not sit well with Mr Trump when he was asked by reporters regarding his view on the magazine’s cover photo.

He said, “Is Time Magazine still in business? I didn’t know that,” followed by subtle laughs and chuckles, while proceeding to speak highly of the world’s wealthiest man.

Mr Trump said, “Elon is doing a great job. He is finding tremendous fraud and corruption and waste. You see it with the USAID, but you are going to see even more with other agencies and other parts of the government.’’

He noted, “He(Mr Musk) has got a staff that’s fantastic. He’s wanted to be able to do this for a long time. Everybody else knew it was existent but, I think, never so much when you look at USAID. The whole thing is a fraud. Very little being put to good use. Every single line that I look at in terms of events and transactions is either corrupt or ridiculous. And we are going to be doing that through our government and we are going to be very close to balancing the budget. He’s (Mr Musk) doing a very good job. I am very happy with it.’’

Though Mr Trump has a cordial relationship with TIME Magazine as he was selected TIME’s person of the year in 2024 for a second time, the magazine’s current position didn’t sit well with him.