The contest for Treasury secretary is emerging as a key stumbling block in Donald Trump's presidential transition as candidates rise and fall by the day and top advisers make their arguments before millions of followers.

Last week, the top contenders had appeared to be Howard Lutnick, CEO of Cantor Fitzgerald, and Scott Bessent, a former Soros Fund Management investing chief.

But the water is now murkier than ever after a weekend of even more intense back and forth unlike anything surrounding Trump's other picks so far.

"Would be interesting to hear more people weigh in on this," Elon Musk even asked his 200+ million followers on Saturday before making his own views clear.

"My view fwiw is that Bessent is a business-as-usual choice, whereas [Lutnick] will actually enact change."

But even Musk hasn't been able to put an end to the debate, with Bessent still being pushed by prominent backers in Trump's orbit but new contenders apparently now in consideration.

On Sunday, the New York Times reported that Lutnick has "gotten on Mr. Trump’s nerves lately" and the President-elect is now expected to meet this week with former Federal Reserve governor Kevin Warsh and Apollo Global Management CEO Marc Rowan in a sign he is unsatisfied with his choices. (Disclosure: Yahoo Finance is owned by Apollo Global Management).

While much of the jockeying appears to be about not spooking the stock market with a controversial pick, much of the debate playing out in public appears to be about finding a candidate who is credible to business leaders but also on board with Trump's economic ideas, specifically tariffs.

Trump has long championed import duties as a potential "ring around the country" but with the business community often much less sanguine about his ideas.

The attempt to bridge the divide has been on display for weeks.

"When was America great?" Lutnick asked the crowd at Madison Square Garden even before the election before discussing the 1890s as an era where "all we had was tariffs" and the economy was "rocking."

It got a cheer but was clearly designed to appeal mostly to Trump himself, who talked about the era of William McKinley pretty much nonstop on the campaign trail.

Bessent weighed in last week with a Fox News op-ed where he talked argued that tariffs have a "long and storied history as both a revenue-raising tool and a way of protecting strategically important industries."

As for Rowan, when he was asked about a possible trade war during an appearance last week at Yahoo Finance Invest conference last week, he downplayed the chances saying "markets are at the moment are not pricing in much for geopolitical risk."