Should we call him “President Musk” as some of Donald Trump’s opponents already do? The current battle over the American budget in any case confirms the incredible political influence of the multi-billionaire on the Trump presidency, even before it begins.
• Also read: Veto by Trump and Musk: the United States close to budgetary paralysis
• Also read: Trump speaks out against a deal in Congress to avoid budgetary paralysis
Wednesday December 18. It was a little after 4 a.m. when the hyperactive boss of Tesla and SpaceX assassinated, on the social network the federal state, a “shutdown”.
“This law must not pass,” writes the 53-year-old multi-billionaire. He launched an avalanche of messages against this text, although it was supported by Republican elected officials, furiously recalling the way in which Donald Trump used the platform when it was still called Twitter, during his first term.
Elon Musk, charged by Donald Trump with an extragovernmental mission of deregulation and reduction of public spending, lashes out against a “criminal” and “crazy” text, which must be “killed”.
Flattery
Some Republican deputies quickly got into his shoes, not hesitating to openly flatter him: “I have been waiting for a profound change in dynamics for five years. Here we are,” writes North Carolina elected official Dan Bishop on X, for example, in a comment on a publication by the richest man in the world.
Other hard-right parliamentarians later went so far as to demand that he be elected head of the House of Representatives.
We had to wait until Wednesday afternoon for Donald Trump to speak, via a press release.
AFP
The 78-year-old Republican denounces a “ridiculous and extraordinarily expensive” bill and demands that Congress start from scratch. Here is the leading world power threatened with a “shutdown” at Christmas.
“The voice of the people has been heard. It was a good day for America,” rejoiced Elon Musk, whom his detractors present as an unstable and megalomaniac personality. He then shared the message from an Vox dei” — The voice of the people, the voice of God.
The Democratic camp hastened to portray Donald Trump under influence.
“Crazy”
Senator Bernie Sanders, a figure of the American left, speaks on X about “President Musk”. “The Republicans follow his orders. It’s crazy,” comments Democratic elected official Don Beyer. “At least we know who is in charge,” quips another Democratic parliamentarian, Jim McGovern.
Strategist David Axelrod points out contradictions in the demands of Elon Musk and Donald Trump. “They have to see each other and decide who is president,” he jokes on CNN.
The meteoric political rise of the multi-billionaire, originally from South Africa and naturalized American, defies all historical comparisons.
Never before have we seen in the United States an entrepreneur take on such stature so quickly and so openly, without ever having held an electoral mandate.
Elon Musk was omnipresent during the campaign, he is essential during the transition period. He seems to have settled down at Mar-a-Lago, the Florida residence where Donald Trump is preparing to come to power on January 20.
Musk et Bezos
According to the press, Elon Musk, for example, participated on Wednesday evening in a president-elect’s dinner with Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, who is one of his rivals in the space sector.
Elon Musk was not made a minister, in the legal sense of the term, but his mission to reform the federal state led his adversaries to say that he could use this position to serve his industrial interests. The multi-billionaire relies on public contracts, notably for his space company SpaceX.
“Elon Musk spent much less money to buy the United States government than to buy Twitter,” asserts activist George Conway, one of the few representatives of the conservative camp openly hostile to Donald Trump, on the social network BlueSky. .
The controversial billionaire has become the largest political donor in recent American history with more than $270 million donated to Republicans ahead of the November election.
It acquired Twitter in 2022 for $44 billion.
