The internet has four letters for Elon Musk: “STFU.”
In response to one of Musk’s posts, in which he insisted, “No bills should be passed by Congress until Jan 20, when @realDonaldTrump takes office,” one X user told the world’s richest man he should keep his opinions to himself. They wrote that they were “sick and tired” of listening to the political point of view of someone “no one elected.”
While Musk was never officially elected to hold office, that hasn’t stopped him from being awarded one. Musk has been tapped by Donald Trump himself to lead the Department of Government Efficiency, a yet-to-be-created agency focused on budget cuts that happens to be named after Musk’s favorite meme.
How did Musk earn the position? The same way some other members of Trump’s Cabinet did, through financial donations. When it comes to Trump’s campaign donors, none were as prolific as the centibillionaire. Elon Musk donated over a quarter of a billion dollars to Trump and other Republican candidates while on the campaign trail, a move that did not go unnoticed by the president-elect. Now Musk and Trump are nothing short of inseparable, and the Space X CEO has reportedly been spending time at Mar-a-Lago, where he has sat in on calls between Trump and other world leaders such as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
According to sources at Mar-a-Lago, Musk has plenty more political opinions, and has begun to carry himself as if he were “co-president.” The sources say that Musk has reportedly been “taking lots of credit for the president’s victory,” and may soon wear out his welcome with Trump.
Musk’s posts are more than just hypothetical musings on government procedure, they have dangerous real-world consequences. Musk recently tanked a bipartisan bill set to avert a government shutdown with a flurry of tweets at four in the morning, lambasting the legislation and saying it “should not pass.” The bill was set to ensure that hundreds of thousands of federal employees would be paid over the holidays, and provide disaster relief for areas ravaged by Hurricane Helene. After Musk and DOGE co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy blasted the bill on social media, Donald Trump and Vice President-elect J.D. Vance followed suit and demanded the bill be changed.
“It’s clear who’s in charge, and it’s not President-elect Donald Trump,” wrote Rep. Pramila Jayapal on X. Jayapal critically referred to Musk as the “Shadow President,” and suggested that while Trump is set to run the government, Elon Musk holds ultimate political power.
Rep. Pramila Jayapal isn’t the only politician fearful of Musk’s growing influence on government. Rep. Don Beyer took to X to point out that the “richest man in the world” wants to “force millions of American workers – including our troops – to go without pay through the holidays.” The most “insane” part, Beyer writes, is that “Republicans are following his orders.”
Republicans are indeed following Musk’s orders. Despite having painstakingly assembled the bill with their Democrat colleagues, the GOP is now scrambling to draft new legislation around the bill to appease Trump, and by extension, Musk. The richest man in the world became even more so in recent months, and Musk is now worth half a trillion dollars, more than the GDP of 140 countries on Earth. With his vast wealth, a government shutdown won’t affect him in the slightest, but it will affect millions of Americans who depend upon a functioning government for their livelihood. Musk knows this, but based on his willingness to tank the government anyway, he simply doesn’t care.
