Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman of New York suggested Thursday night that Elon Musk would provide President-elect Donald Trump with a “windfall” if the incoming commander-in-chief does the bidding of the X owner.
The Tesla CEO was successful in his efforts to take down a continuing resolution that was set to allow the government to remain funded through Christmas, forcing Speaker Mike Johnson back to the drawing board.
Musk tweeted against the bill Wednesday before Trump did the same, pushing for it to be voted down. Speaker Mike Johnson then withdrew the bill before introducing a shorter version Thursday which was rejected even as it was backed by both Musk and Trump.
Goldman appeared on MSNBC shortly before the vote on the new spending package Thursday.
“Congressman, it occurs to me the Founders, they made their mistakes, but they had one president, I think, for a reason,” host Chris Hayes told Goldman. “You’re sort of seeing the problem with the co-president model. If the two co-presidents don’t agree, it’s hard to get anywhere. The two co-presidents-elect, I guess. But I can’t actually understand who’s where on what that you can get a path forward.”
“Let’s clarify one thing — there does appear to be one president. It’s Elon Musk, who has his own very self-interested view of everything, including the fact that he wanted to remove restrictions on … U.S. companies investing in China. I wonder why,” Goldman told Hayes, in a possible reference to a large Tesla factory in Shanghai, Mediaite noted.
“He has his own interests related solely to his own federal contracts, his own business interests,” he added. “He has no idea how government operates or how government runs. But he spent nearly $300 million to get Donald Trump elected. There are rumors that he is going to use X to buy or merge with Truth Social, which would give Donald Trump a tremendous windfall.”
Goldman went on to say that Musk has Trump “in a vise.”
“It is very clear that Elon Musk is now calling the shots. There’s no way Donald Trump was not aware of what these negotiations were for weeks and weeks and weeks,” said Goldman. “And the fact that he would just drop in the debt ceiling limit at the 11th hour after … Mike Johnson and the Republicans reached a bipartisan deal is preposterous. But that’s because of Elon Musk.”
Goldman said, “We need to face the reality” that “right now, we have President Elon Musk.”
“And Trump? Maybe he’s vice president, I guess. Vice presidents don’t do much, so that makes sense. He might be the chief of staff. I don’t know what you call him, but he is not calling the shots,” said Goldman.
Musk wrote on X Friday morning: “The political and legacy media puppets all got their new instructions yesterday and are now parroting the same message to drive a wedge between @realDonaldTrump and me. They will fail.”
Tech journalist Kara Swisher said during an appearance on CNN last month that Truth Social and X could merge to become a larger “propaganda organ.”
“He’ll use it as a propaganda organ, which is precisely why he bought it,” she said about Musk and his social media platform.
A Forbes analysis found earlier this year that three court decisions have put Trump back $574 million. The outlet estimated that the president-elect has $410 million in cash and about $9 billion in assets, including about $6 billion worth of shares in his social media company.
