Republicans rejected Democrats’ claims that Elon Musk is running the GOP after the tech titan helped tank a government spending bill.
Musk, whom Trump has appointed to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency, announced Wednesday he was opposed to a continuing resolution meant to keep the government funded until March 2025. In a series of posts, over 100, on X, the DOGE leader said the 1,547-page bill went far beyond its stated purpose, arguing it contained major spending increases, a host of unrelated provisions, including pay raises for lawmakers, and changes to the law.
After House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) pulled the bill Wednesday evening, Musk was subsequently accused by Democrats of acting as the GOP’s “shadow” leader and usurping President-elect Donald Trump’s authority — claims that top Republicans, and the DOGE co-chairman himself, are now denouncing.
Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s top communications spokeswoman, released a statement Thursday night arguing that Johnson pulled the bill mere hours after Trump announced his opposition to the bill Wednesday evening.
“As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR, Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view. President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop,” Leavitt said.
Fox and Friends co-host Lawrence Jones, who has developed a relationship with Trump, said that during a conversation with the president-elect on Thursday evening, he was fully supportive of Musk’s work to tank the bill.
“It did not bother the president,” Jones said of Musk’s leadership in stopping the continuing resolution.
“As I said yesterday, the Musk tweet was a warning shot from the president. They are in lockstep on this. This is why the president appointed him for this [DOGE] commission — him and Vivek — they are doing what the president wants them to do,” Jones continued.
Musk and Trump had dinner together at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago home Wednesday evening, seemingly unfazed by the controversy.
Republicans largely see the X owner as influential but not as powerful as Trump.
“The most influential person in the Republican Party is Donald Trump. But the second-most is Elon Musk. He has the attention of a lot of members,” one House Republican staffer told Politico.
Musk, the owner of X, has echoed Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in suggesting the bill tanked because “for the first time, thanks to X, the public is seeing what is actually happening in our government at scale.”
“Exactly,” he said Thursday evening in response to a post arguing that “to say that ‘Elon Musk’ is the ‘President’ implies that people are too stupid to think for themselves.”
Musk continued to agree with the sentiment that his posts condemning the spending bill were “not a function of Elon — it’s a function of how many people are upset with the Government.”
After the initial government spending bill failed Wednesday evening, Johnson pulled together a new continuing resolution for a vote Thursday evening that was backed by Trump.
Musk also supported the bill, posting about it on X, while giving the “credit” for authoring the proposal to Trump, Johnson, and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance.
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The latest bill also failed to garner support from enough lawmakers to push it past the finish line.
The House is set to vote on another “very similar” spending bill on Friday morning. Congress has until Friday night to pass a continuing resolution if lawmakers wish to avert a government shutdown.
