Trump rejects taunts that Elon Musk is real power behind US president-elect | Donald Trump News

US President Donald Trump denied the idea that he would cede the presidency to a billionaire Elon Muskwho played a large role in the president-elect’s transition to the White House.

Trump made these comments during a speech in Arizona on Sunday, days after the owner of Tesla and SpaceX intervened alongside the president-elect to stir up controversy. Failure of the budget bill Negotiated in Congress.

The incident was the latest in which Musk played an unusually large role in the incoming Trump administration, drawing criticism from Democrats and from within Trump’s Republican Party.

Addressing these criticisms directly for the first time, Trump praised Musk, before adding: “No, he will not be president.”

Trump also described the suggestion that he would “cede the presidency to Elon Musk” as another “hoax” pushed by his political opponents.

In a subsequent comment, Trump noted that there was no risk of Musk officially assuming the office of president because he would be constitutionally prohibited from doing so.

“You know why he can’t be [president]Trump asked the crowd in Arizona. “He wasn’t born in this country.”

South African-born Musk — the world’s richest person according to Forbes — became one of Trump’s biggest supporters in the run-up to the election, endorsing the president-elect in July after an assassination attempt and pumping an estimated $200 million into the campaign. A political action committee (PAC) supports Trump.

Since then, he has been appointed by Trump to lead a proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), charged with taking a slash-and-burn approach to federal government spending.

The so-called “management” has been described as an independent advisory committee, rather than an official government agency, and its jurisdiction remains undefined.

Interfering in the budget deal

Trump’s statements come a day after outgoing US President Joe Biden Signing the financing bill Which avoids a government shutdown.

The previous bill negotiated by members of both parties in Congress was torpedoed days earlier when Trump came out in opposition.

The president-elect’s main claim was that the bill did not raise the debt ceiling — a political battle that Trump had hoped to avoid before taking office in January. Debt ceiling The borrowing limit in the United States is a limit imposed by Congress on the amount of money the government can borrow to cover the gap between its revenues and spending.

Musk has also opposed the deal, which he criticized in a torrent of tweets on the social media platform X, which he also owns. He pledged financial support for the initial challenges of lawmakers who supported the original legislation.

House Speaker Mike Johnson later told US media that he spoke by phone with both Trump and Musk while they were renegotiating a new bill.

The final bill — which funds the US government at the current rate through March 14 — eliminated several provisions that Trump and Musk opposed. However, the final version did not raise the debt ceiling amid opposition from a cadre of Republican lawmakers.

Speaking to CNN, Republican lawmaker Rich McCormick said Musk’s intervention showed “that he has influence and will put pressure on us to do whatever he thinks is the right thing for him.”

Other Republicans were more accepting, with Rep. Tony Gonzalez saying in a CBS interview that “it looks like Elon Musk is our prime minister.”

Speaking on CNN, Senator Bill Hagerty praised Musk’s role in negotiating the bill, while opposing the idea that the billionaire was driving Trump’s decisions.

‘Very worrying’

Far from a budget deal, Musk Regular attendance The move, along with Trump before he takes office on January 20, has alarmed Democrats for weeks.

The billionaire was on the call when Trump spoke with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky after his election victory. He also attended recent meetings with French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in New York.

The criticism was prompted by memes on social media showing Trump submitting to Musk in various places.

After last week’s budget negotiations, many Democrats accused Musk of meddling to serve his own interests.

They noted his support for removing a provision in the original bill that could have limited his business operations in China.

“It is deeply troubling that House Republican leadership, at the request of an unelected billionaire, canceled a bipartisan, bicameral-negotiated funding deal that included this important provision to protect American jobs and critical capabilities,” Rep. Rosa DeLauro wrote in a letter to congressional leaders. Friday.