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Let It Burn!
The GOP Is Treating Musk Like He’s in Charge
This week, the world’s richest person solidified his influence over American politics.
www.theatlantic.com
Yesterday, a tantrum from the world’s richest person swayed events in Congress. First, Elon Musk launched a blizzard of X posts denouncing a bipartisan spending bill designed to keep the government open. Calling the bill “criminal,” Musk threatened: “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in two years!”
Panic ensued among the notoriously skittish congressional GOP, who quickly bowed to their master’s voice. Musk, of course, is not actually the president-elect. He received approximately zero percent of the votes in last month’s election. But for a few hours this week, Musk didn’t just act as if he, and not Donald Trump, will soon hold the reins of government power; the GOP also responded as if he will.
As Russell Berman noted in The Atlantic earlier today, Republicans were not happy with the proposed version of the spending bill, but House Speaker Mike Johnson “believed that he could get enough Republicans to join most Democrats in passing the bill in time to avert a government shutdown.” It turns out, though, that the person he really needed to persuade was Musk. “I was communicating with Elon last night,” Johnson said yesterday on Fox & Friends. “Elon, Vivek [Ramaswamy], and I are on a text chain together, and I was explaining to them the background of this.” The pleading and lobbying to the unelected billionaires went on for a while. Johnson added, “Vivek and I talked last night [until] about almost midnight … [He and Musk] understand the situation. They said, ‘It’s not directed at you, Mr. Speaker, but we don’t like the spending.’ And I said, ‘Guess what, fellas? I don’t either.’”
