President-elect Donald Trump laughed off liberal angst over tech mogul Elon Musk’s rising political affect and affirmed that the area and Tesla guru gained’t be president.
Final week, after Musk helped gin up political opposition to a authorities funding measure, Democrats dubbed him “President Musk” and seemingly angled to use his and Trump’s egos to pit them towards one another.
“All the different hoaxes, and the new one is, ‘President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk,’ ” Trump, 78, griped to a crowd at Turning Level Motion’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Ariz., on Sunday. “No, no. That’s not occurring.
“I’m safe. You know why? He can’t be. He wasn’t born in this country.”
Beneath Article II of the Structure, solely natural-born residents may be eligible for the presidency. Musk was born in South Africa and have become a US citizen in 2002.
Since Trump’s election victory, Musk, 53, has spent weeks hunkered down in on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago, Fla., property, sitting in on key conferences with Trump and providing his recommendation on coverage selections.
A refrain of Democrats have latched onto the world’s richest man’s pronounced political affect and labored to get below Trump’s pores and skin by attempting to recommend that the president-elect’s sway has been diminished.
However Trump declined to take the bait Sunday and as an alternative heaped reward on Musk, crowing about how the SpaceX founder’s firm caught its Starship tremendous heavy raise rocket with Mechazilla in October at Starbase.
The president-elect additionally counseled Musk for serving to him win in Pennsylvania and supplying Web entry by way of Musk’s Starlink set-up to storm-ravaged stretches of North Carolina.
“Elon’s done an amazing job. Isn’t it nice to have some smart people that we can rely on? Don’t we want that? He’s done a great job,” Trump mentioned.
“He’s a great guy, and we want to have him.”
Trump has tapped Musk, alongside biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to helm the newly minted Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), which regardless of its title, just isn’t truly a authorities division.
Musk rankled Democrats and even some Republicans final week when he publicly assailed a compromise measure supposed to stop a authorities shutdown.
The billionaire tycoon railed towards a litany of provisions within the greater than 1,500-page invoice in X posts for his 208.7 million followers to see, whipping up opposition towards it.
Later, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance got here out publicly towards the stopgap measure, sending Home Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) again to the drafting board.
Finally, the Home of Representatives handed a dramatically pared-down spending patch to maintain the federal government’s lights on by way of mid-March.
Johnson has additionally downplayed any issues about Musk.
“I love Elon. He’s a force multiplier for us,” Johnson just lately informed a buyer throughout a cease at Goal, which was caught on video.
