Rand Paul thinks the richest man in the world should be speaker of the House.
The Republican senator suggested on X that Musk take the position, after he helped kill Speaker Mike Johnson’s spending bill, pushing the federal government closer to shutdown.
“The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress,” Paul posted on Thursday. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk … think about it … nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds).”
The speaker of the House does not need to be an elected official, although it always has been in the past. Still, the likelihood of this MAGA fantasy coming to fruition seems low, as President-elect Trump himself told Fox News Thursday that Johnson would remain speaker so long as he “acts decisively and tough” on the upcoming spending package.
Even without the speakership, Musk’s influence on the president-elect and the greater Republican Party is undeniable. He has already been appointed to co-lead the Department of Government Efficiency and has been a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago. His oversize role was called into question recently after he and Trump publicly disagreed on raising the debt ceiling.
“It’s not Donald Trump asking for this, it’s very clearly President Elon Musk asking for this,” Representative Dan Goldman told The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell. “The fact that Donald Trump has been completely AWOL during these negotiations to the point where only after Elon Musk publicly tweets about his displeasure about this budget deal, all of a sudden, Donald Trump, chief of staff to Elon Musk, comes trotting in and blows up the deal.”