United States President Donald Trump has pushed again on the notion that he has “ceded the presidency” to billionaire Elon Musk, who has taken an outsized function within the president-elect’s transition into the White Home.
Trump made the feedback throughout a speech in Arizona on Sunday, days after the Tesla and SpaceX proprietor intervened alongside the president-elect to scuttle a finances invoice negotiated in Congress.
The incident was the most recent during which Musk has taken an atypically massive function within the incoming Trump administration, prompting criticism from Democrats and from inside Trump’s personal Republican celebration.
Instantly addressing these criticisms for the primary time, Trump praised Musk, earlier than including: “And no, he’s not taking the presidency.”
Trump additional known as the suggestion that he has “ceded the presidency to Elon Musk” one other “hoax” pushed by his political opponents.
In a later quip, Trump famous that there isn’t any danger of Musk formally taking on as president as a result of he could be constitutionally barred from doing so.
“You realize why he can’t be [president]?” Trump requested the gang in Arizona. “He wasn’t born on this nation.”
The South African-born Musk – the world’s richest individual in response to Forbes Journal – turned one in all Trump’s greatest supporters within the run-up to the election, endorsing the president-elect in July following an assassination try and pumping an estimated $200m right into a Political Motion Committee (PAC) supporting Trump.
He has since been tapped by Trump to steer a proposed Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), tasked with taking a slash-and-burn method to federal authorities spending.
The so-called “division” has been billed as an unbiased advisory panel, not an official authorities company, and its purview stays undefined.
Price range deal intervention
Trump’s feedback come a day after outgoing US President Joe Biden signed into legislation a funding invoice that averts a authorities shutdown.
The earlier invoice negotiated by members of each events in Congress was torpedoed days earlier when Trump got here out in opposition.
The president-elect’s most important competition was that the invoice didn’t increase the debt ceiling – a political battle Trump hoped to keep away from earlier than taking workplace in January. The debt ceiling is the US’s borrowing restrict, a cap imposed by Congress on how a lot cash the federal government can borrow to cowl the hole between its income and spending.
Musk had additionally come out in opposition to the deal, which he criticised in a flood of tweets on the X social media platform that he additionally owns. He pledged to financially assist main challenges to lawmakers who supported the unique laws.
Speaker of the Home Mike Johnson later informed US media that he spoke by cellphone to each Trump and Musk as a brand new invoice was renegotiated.
The ultimate invoice – which funds the US authorities on the present price by way of March 14 – gutted a number of provisions opposed by Trump and Musk. Nonetheless, the ultimate model didn’t increase the debt ceiling amid opposition from a cadre of Republican lawmakers.
Chatting with CNN, Republican lawmaker Wealthy McCormick stated Musk’s intervention confirmed “he has affect and he’ll put stress on us to do no matter he thinks the correct factor is for him.”
Different Republicans have been extra accepting, with Consultant Tony Gonzales saying in an interview on CBS that it “seems like Elon Musk is our prime minister”.
Talking on CNN, Senator Invoice Hagerty praised Musk’s function in negotiating the invoice, whereas pushing again on the notion that the billionaire was driving Trump’s choices.
‘Extraordinarily alarming’
Past the finances deal, Musk’s common presence alongside Trump earlier than he takes workplace on January 20 has for weeks triggered disquiet amongst Democrats.
The billionaire was on the decision when Trump spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy following his election victory. He has additionally been current for latest conferences with French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in New York.
The criticism has been prompted by social media memes displaying Trump kowtowing to Musk in varied settings.
Following final week’s finances negotiations, a number of Democrats accused Musk of intervening to serve his personal pursuits.
They pointed to his assist for eradicating a provision within the authentic invoice that might have restricted the operations of his companies in China.
“This can be very alarming that Home Republican management, on the urging of an unelected billionaire, scrapped a bipartisan, bicameral negotiated funding deal that included this crucial provision to guard American jobs and significant capabilities,” Consultant Rosa DeLauro wrote in a letter to congressional leaders on Friday.