Whether Elon Musk is the real “president,” merely the “prime minister” or just Donald Trump ’s multibillionaire enforcer, he’s carving out an unprecedented role that could raise conflicts of interest for the new administration. The dust is still settling following the Tesla and SpaceX pioneer’s role last week in sabotaging a year-end House spending package, which was eventually replaced by a smaller stopgap law to keep the government open until March. Republican lawmakers on Sunday raced to praise and defend the X owner — perhaps not surprisingly since the richest man in the world has threatened to finance primary challenges to members of Congress who defy Trump’s orders.
“Thank God Elon Musk bought Twitter, because that’s the only way we’d even know what’s in this bill,” Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty told CNN’s Dana Bash on “State of the Union.” The comment might seem strange since lawmakers ought not to need a social media network to be able to read a bill before they vote.
But Hagerty also revealed Musk’s hold on the GOP base when he said that “every one of our offices was inundated with calls from our constituents” after the billionaire’s complaints that the bill was full of bloated spending. Republican Rep. Tony Gonzales of Texas, meanwhile, described the incoming dynamic in Washington.
“We have a president. We have a vice president. We have a speaker.
And it feels ...
as if Elon Musk is our prime minister,” he said on CBS’ �.
