To hear some Democrats and media critics talk, tech billionaire Elon Musk's involvement with President Donald Trump's administration is driven solely by self-interest and a desire to obtain otherwise unattainable benefits for himself and his companies.

During a portion of an interview that aired this week with Fox News host Sean Hannity, however, both Musk and Trump insisted that Musk would have no involvement in anything that was directly related to his businesses, Breitbart reported.

Trump suggested that he would deny Musk permission to get involved with certain things while Musk vowed to recuse himself from any conflicts of interest, but whether that will prove sufficient to satisfy all or even some of their critics and partisan opposition is debatable.

Addressing potential conflicts of interest

At one point during the joint interview that aired Tuesday evening, Hannity asked President Trump of Musk, "What about his business, what if there is ... a contract he would otherwise get?"

Before Hannity could finish that question, Trump interjected, "Then we won’t let him do it," and added just seconds later, "We’re not going to let him do it."

The president proceeded to reference Republican proposals to drastically reduce or eliminate taxpayer-funded subsidies for electric vehicles and acknowledged the economically harmful impact that could have on Musk's Tesla company, but insisted that it was nevertheless the right thing to do.

Just a moment later, Musk declared, "I haven't asked the president for anything," to which Hannity replied by asking how they would handle things if a conflict of interest arose in the future. "Well, he won’t be involved," Trump said, to which Musk quickly chimed in, "I’ll recuse myself if it is."

"If there’s a conflict, he won’t be involved. I wouldn’t want that and he won’t want it," Trump reiterated.

Musk says criticism means they "must be over the target" and "doing something right"

At another point in the conversation, according to Fox News, President Trump and Musk responded to questions from Hannity about the sharp criticism they'd received from partisan opponents in the Democratic Party and the media, some of whom have taken to mockingly referring to the "unelected" Musk as the "president," as though he wields more power than Trump.

"We must be over the target or doing something right," Musk replied. "They wouldn't be complaining so much if we weren't doing something useful."

"What we're really trying to do here is restore the will of the people through the president. And what we're finding is that there's an unelected bureaucracy -- speaking of unelected, there's a vast federal bureaucracy that is implacably opposed to the president and the cabinet," he added along with his conclusion that much of the "outrage" stemmed from the left's observation of "the thrashing of the bureaucracy as we try to restore democracy and the will of the people."

Trump and Musk cognizant of the ongoing effort to "drive us apart"

Also referenced in Hannity's interview with President Trump and Musk were the overt efforts of their opposition to drive a wedge between them to disrupt their friendship and partnership and "drive us apart."

"I see it all the time," Trump shared. "Actually, Elon called me -- he said, you know, 'They're trying to drive us apart.' I said, ‘Absolutely.’"

"It's just so obvious. They're so bad at it. I used to think they were good at it," Trump, who has weathered pointed criticism and efforts to ruin his relationships with friends for the better part of a decade, added. "They're actually bad at it because if they were good at it, I'd never be president."