The GOP Is Treating Musk Like He’s in ChargeNEWS | 22 December 2024This is an edition of The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here.
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.’”
Johnson’s attempt at appeasement failed. Within hours, the pseudo president-elect had kneecapped Johnson. Trump and J. D. Vance weighed in yesterday afternoon, releasing a statement denouncing the spending bill. The government was on the edge of a shutdown. As of this writing, Trump has praised a new, slimmed-down version of the spending bill (as has Musk), opening the possibility of averting that outcome. But Musk’s place at the center of this process offered us a preview of the political dynamics of the Musk-Trump-GOP era: razor-thin legislative margins, chaos, governing via social-media rant, and a Game of Thrones–style jockeying for power between Musk and Trump.
Musk’s day of prolific posting was also a reminder of how little he comprehends about the U.S. government. His feverish 100-plus posts were riddled with disinformation and false claims that revealed his lack of understanding of the basics of budgeting. He got details wrong about a congressional pay raise and taxpayer funding of an NFL stadium in Washington, D.C. He pushed misinformation from a January 6 rioter who falsely claimed that the spending bill would block Republican investigation of the January 6 Select Committee. Musk exulted in the prospect of a complete government shutdown, posting that a shutdown “doesn’t actually shut down critical functions.” Although it is true that “essential functions” would continue (and that Social Security checks would still go out), contra Musk, shutdowns are neither painless nor cheap. Large swaths of the government would indeed be forced to shut down, and government employees would see delayed paychecks.
Wherever the spending bill lands, this week may mark another dramatic shift in GOP politics. For years, as a signal of their commitment to fiscal prudence, conservative Republicans have opposed raising the debt limit. Today, though, after Musk had stolen a march on him, Trump called for doing away with the debt ceiling altogether (possibly because he wants to clear the way for massive tax cuts next year). That sort of demand will force members of the Freedom Caucus to—once again—choose between fiscal conservatism and their sycophantic loyalty to the incoming president. The latest version of the spending bill, according to Trump’s social-media posts, would suspend the debt ceiling until January 2027.
Meanwhile, the president-elect has to deal with the specter of Elon Musk. As Politico’s Jonathan Martin noted on X yesterday, Musk’s moment brings with it a few potential downsides for Trump: “The Elon risk here is he’s not just diverting attention from Trump, he’s also threatening to deliver him bad press if the gov’t shuts down.” This week, Musk solidified his influence over the systems of U.S. government, but the clock may be ticking on Trump’s tolerance of that fact.
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