GOP lawmakers want Elon Musk to be Speaker of the House

Within 24 hours of centibillionaire Elon Musk using his X platform to push through the congressional funding bill and push the federal government to the brink of a shutdown, three GOP lawmakers are now calling for him to be named Speaker of the House.

On Thursday, Senator Rand Paul, a Kentucky Republican, was the first to float the idea, in a post on Musk’s X platform. “The Speaker of the House should not be a member of Congress,” Paul wrote. “Nothing will disturb the swamp more than electing Elon Musk.”

Senator Mike Lee of Utah also endorsed Musk as Speaker, though he added that he would be happy to have Vivek Ramaswamy take the role, telling right-wing talk show host Benny Johnson, “Let them pick one of their own, I don’t want to.” I don’t care which one, to be their Speaker,” said Lee. “That would change everything, it would break up the company.”

Paul’s proposal was quickly embraced by another far-right elected official when Marjorie Taylor Greene, a representative from Georgia, wrote to X, “I would agree to support it.

@elonmusk to Speaker of the House. DOGE can only be achieved by governing in Congress to make real government efficiency. The building needs to be dismantled as it was yesterday. This can be a way. “

Greene was talking about Musk’s role in killing the bipartisan government funding deal that House Speaker Mike Johnson spent months negotiating with Republicans and Democrats. Despite President-elect Trump and his team not opposing the deal, according to Politico, Musk launched a campaign on X on Wednesday to blow the deal out of the water, tweeting about it more than 100 times.

Finally, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance issued a lengthy statement on X calling the deal a “betrayal of our country” and urging Republican lawmakers to reject the deal—which they did.

The following is unclear. If a deal is not reached by Friday, federal workers will stop receiving paychecks and large parts of the government will temporarily shut down. But with Democrats saying they have no interest in returning to the negotiating table, and Johnson ruling out raising the debt, which Trump wants, there is no clear path to a bill that works, at least Musk admits.