Trump explains why Musk won’t be US president
Tech billionaire Elon Musk is not going to be the US president, America’s incoming head of state Donald Trump has said, dismissing Democratic lawmakers’ taunts that Musk is the “real leader” of the Republican Party after his online campaign helped sink the government spending bill.
Some Democratic leaders have raised concerns about Musk’s undue influence on the Republican politician, implying that Trump had ceded the presidency to the tech billionaire.
Delivering his first major speech since the November election at Turning Point’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona on Sunday, Trump rejected the claims.
“No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you,” he said. “And I’m safe. You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country.”
Even if the billionaire wanted the job, he couldn’t get it because the American Constitution requires the US president to be a natural-born citizen, while Musk was born in South Africa.
The remarks come as Democratic politicians have recently implied that Musk is the “real leader” of the GOP.
The claims followed the billionaire’s aggressive pressure campaign against a bipartisan bill to fund the government, in which he branded the spending proposal as “criminal,” “outrageous,” and “one of the worst bills ever written.”
Commenting on the spending plan collapse, Karoline Leavitt, transition spokesperson for the Trump-Vance team, issued a statement last week cited by The Hill.
“As soon as President Trump released his official stance on the CR [continuing resolution], Republicans on Capitol Hill echoed his point of view. President Trump is the leader of the Republican Party. Full stop,” the statement read.
“All the different hoaxes, and the new one is, ‘President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk,’” Trump said to the crowd in Arizona. “No, no. That’s not happening.”
The president-elect praised his high-profile ally, who reportedly contributed a total of $238.5 million to a pro-Trump political action committee, saying that Musk “went to Pennsylvania, and he stayed – stayed up there for a month, and helped us to win that state, which we won by a lot.”
“Isn’t it nice to have smart people we can rely on? Don’t we want that?” Trump asked, addressing the gathering at Turning Point.
The billionaire has been closely involved with the transition process and has publicly weighed in on electoral politics with his online commentary on appointments.
Musk and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy have been tapped to head the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a new initiative tasked with reducing government waste and streamlining the federal bureaucracy.
