Elon Musk's tweets pressured House Republicans to reject a spending bill, potentially leading to a government shutdown. His actions have sparked debate about his influence and role in US politics.
Elon Musk has never held an elected office. President-elect Donald Trump has not appointed him to any government role. Until the July assassination attempt, he didn't even publicly support Trump . But this week, critics of the world’s richest man say he attained a new title: “shadow president” of the United States.
President-elect Donald Trump, from left, Trump’s pick for the planned Department of Government Efficiency Elon Musk and Vice President-elect JD Vance attend the NCAA college football game between Army and Navy.In a matter of hours on Wednesday, Musk used his powerful X account to pressure House Republicans to reject a spending bill that would have kept the federal government open for three months. Musk’s rapid-fire messages - which included numerous false claims about the contents of the spending bill - spread through Washington, where some legislators reported their phone lines were ringing all day with calls from constituents who saw the posts. More than 12 hours after Musk’s first post on the subject, Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance also issued a statement opposing the legislation, and House Republicans dropped the deal. Musk continued posting throughout Thursday as House Republicans tried to come up with an alternative. Ultimately, House Republicans added a two-year debt ceiling hike - a key demand of Trump’s - to a slimmed-down version of the original bill that Musk had denounced as “one of the worst bills ever written”, though the cost difference between the two was minimal. But the second Trump-backed measure was heavily defeated in the House on Thursday evening, raising the chances of a shutdown beginning at 12.01am Saturday (4.01pm Sunday AEDT). Musk’s outsized role in pushing the federal government toward a potential shutdown before Christmas has alarmed Democrats, academics and watchdog groups, while some Republicans said his intervention was uninformed
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