Elon Musk sticking his fingers in congressional affairs before his new pal Donald Trump is even sworn in as president had many Democrats referring to the tech figure as “President Musk” Wednesday.
The billionaire Tesla CEO successfully lobbied—with Trump’s help—for the death of a bipartisan spending bill Wednesday that would have staved off a shutdown and funded the government through March—leaving the Capitol in chaos as Congress scrambled to keep Washington running as the Christmas holiday looms.
Regarding the pair’s efforts to kill the spending bill that House Speaker Mike Johnson had painstakingly negotiated with Democratic leaders, New York Rep. Daniel Goldman told MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: “It’s not Donald Trump asking for this. It’s very clearly President Elon Musk asking for this.”
“The fact that Donald Trump has been completely AWOL during these negotiations to the point where only after Elon Musk publicly tweets about his displeasure, about this budget deal,” he continued, “all of a sudden Donald Trump, chief of staff to Elon Musk, comes trotting in and blows up the deal.”
That sentiment was on display from other congressional Democrats, like Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal.
“It’s clear who’s in charge, and it’s not President-elect Donald Trump,” she wrote on X. “Shadow President Elon Musk spent all day railing against Republicans’ CR, succeeded in killing the bill, and then Trump decided to follow his lead.”
And Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson likewise suggested that Musk is the one calling the shots.
“Wow! Rather than serving the people who elected them by keeping the government open through the holidays, MAGA Musk Republicans have chosen to follow President-Elect Musk’s order to SHUT IT DOWN!” he wrote on a post on X. “Folks, American Democracy is in TROUBLE.”
On the Senate side, Bernie Sanders used the term “President Musk” in two posts asking whether Republicans answer to him or to the American people.
Republican former congressman Adam Kinzinger also joined in, referring to the two men as “President Musk” and “Vice President Trump” on CNN.
The latter term got enough traction to trend on X, which Musk owns.
Even as that sentiment went viral Wednesday night on the social media platform, Musk and Trump reportedly dined together at Mar-a-Lago, along with Amazon head Jeff Bezos.
Whether the viral sentiment or the words “President Musk” were mentioned at the table is unclear, but it’s a well-known fact that Trump doesn’t appreciate someone else taking up his spotlight.
As such, Musk is “playing a risky game” by publicly acting before the president-elect—even if their viewpoints are aligned.
That’s according to Wall Street Journal reporter Vivian Salama, who appeared on CNN Wednesday night to discuss the day’s events.
“It is very unusual to see close advisers to Donald Trump getting ahead of him on critical issues like this,” she said. “It’s incredibly risky, and amazingly, his advisers have been remarkably silent on why it took Donald Trump or even Vice President-elect JD Vance so long to weigh in on this issue, whereas Elon Musk, as you were saying, was tweeting all day long about this.”
