Elon Musk is quickly becoming a key figure (if not the key figure) in the Republican Party. Republicans are now calling to install him as the House Speaker after he led a successful effort to quash the bipartisan spending proposal to stave off a government shutdown through a series of tweets.
“Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible,” US Senator Rand Paul posted on X, the Musk-owned platform.
Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene quickly jumped in and endorsed the idea, saying “DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency.”
Asked about becoming speaker, Musk replied briefly: “Should I be?” President-elect Donald Trump meanwhile deflected the suggestion. “We’re very happy with Mike,” he told ABC, referring to current speaker Mike Johnson.
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“[Elon] is too busy sending rockets to the moon,” Trump added. “I think Mike is doing a good job. If Mike proves to be as tough as he is, he has a great chance.”
Online betting markets show an uptick in speculation about Musk’s potential as House Speaker and Trump may soon want to send Musk to the moon if he takes too much attention from him. Lawmakers, alarmed at Musk’s growing influence since his $277 million contribution to Trump and allied campaigns, plus his selection to spearhead the newly-formed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), are starting to call Musk the president-elect.
Is he “going to own the United States before it’s all over?” Ohio representative Marcy Kaptur said to The Independent, noting that Musk has a lot of personal interests at stake and is not “elected to anything.”
“Some people are calling him the president and President (elect) Trump the vice president,” she added. “I have to do some homework on who this man really is.”
Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders called him “President Elon Musk” while criticizing Republicans for letting billionaires run the government.
“President Musk” also trended on X on Wednesday after Musk launched the tweets that helped kill the first spending proposal. “Vice President Trump” was still trending as of Thursday evening. In case you missed it: X, formerly Twitter, is owned by no other than Elon Musk.
“It’s one thing when you have Donald Trump governing by tweet, as he did in his first term, where he was in communication with Congress, but now you have Elon Musk, an unelected oligarch, governing by tweet,” New York representative Dan Goldman said Wednesday on CNN’s “AC360.”
And maybe another thing that, chillingly, Musk didn’t even need to run for office to show who’s in control.
The second proposal, which Trump backed and House House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called “the Musk-Johnson government shutdown bill,” was rejected by the House on Thursday with a 174-235 vote. Congress faces a Friday deadline to pass spending legislation or trigger a government shutdown.
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