Elon Musk, self-described “First Buddy” of President-elect Donald Trump, went all out to thwart a last-minute funding deal to avert a government shutdown. The move was a direct challenge to Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, who rolled out the sweeping plan on Tuesday night.
Now, it appears Musk has successfully 𝓀𝒾𝓁𝓁ed the stopgap measure in its cradle – before it was even brought to a vote.
In a manic posting spree on Wednesday, the world’s richest man bombarded his platform X, formerly Twitter, with attacks on a proposed funding bill, which would’ve kept the government funded through March 14 and had bipartisan support. He also amplified misinformation about what’s in the 1,500-page bill – as did his non-governmental commission, the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which is recommending cuts to government spending and regulations to the incoming Trump administration.
Trump himself signaled Wednesday that he opposes the resolution, according to a joint statement shared by Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. Various hard-right GOP representatives also vowed to vote against it. Should Johnson fail to get a spending plan passed by Dec. 20, the federal government will enter a partial shutdown ahead of the holidays. But that apparently sounded ideal to Musk and his social media clique.
“YES,” Musk commented on an X post from a user who wrote, “Just close down the govt until January 20th. Defund everything. We will be fine for 33 days.” In his own post, Musk wrote, “No bills should be passed [by] Congress until Jan 20, when @realDonaldTrump takes office. None. Zero.” (Upon Trump’s inauguration, Republican majorities will control both chambers of Congress.) Elsewhere, Musk reshared a meme of himself hacking at the bill with a sword, captioned “KILL THE BILL.” In yet another post, he wrote: “Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!”
Musk personally thanked a number of GOP representatives who announced via X that they were voting “no” on the bill, including Reps. Barry Moore, Anna Paulina Luna, Wesley Hunt, Eli Crane, Randy Weber, Michael Cloud, Jeff Van Drew, Warren Davidson, Keith Self, Kevin Kiley and Andy Ogles, many of whom blasted it as an “omnibus” package of excessive spending and Democratic giveaways.
The funding bill, H.R. 10445, contained provisions for allocating roughly $100 billion to relief efforts to aid Americans recovering from natural disasters in the past two years, some $30 billion in aid to farmers, and federal funding to replace the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
It would also have criminalized revenge porn, given the District of Columbia greater control over the area surrounding the defunct Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium as they seek to bring the Washington Commanders back into the city, addressed transparency issues in hotel prices and live event ticketing, and implemented health care reforms, including some intended to lower prescription drug costs.
More controversially, the bill included a pay raise for members Congress, justified as a cost of living adjustment, a provision which drew criticism from both sides of the aisle. At most, it would have boosted their income by $6,600, a 3.8 percent bump from the annual salary of $174,000 that most of them receive. The official DOGE account and Musk both falsely claimed that the pay raise would be $69,000, or nearly 40 percent.
Musk meanwhile shared a post from a far-right influencer who wrote that the resolution would impose mask and vaccine mandates. Although there was a section about ensuring pandemic preparedness that mentioned the need for accelerated vaccine research, there is no language about mandating their administration, nor does the word “mask” appear.
Musk and DOGE likewise bought into and spread the false claim that the bill earmarked billions of taxpayer dollars to build a new NFL stadium in Washington, D.C., at the site of RFK Stadium. In fact, the resolution said the exact opposite, stipulating a covenant that “the District may not use Federal funds for stadium purposes on the Campus, including training facilities, offices, and other structures necessary to support a stadium.”
Other dubious complaints circulating on X were that the bill ensured “Deep State immunity,” as MAGA loyalists interpreted one provision to have been added in order to protect former Rep. Liz Cheney from prosecution over her role on the congressional committee that investigated the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. Trump has said that Cheney belongs in jail, and House Republicans yesterday released a report recommending the FBI investigate Cheney over alleged witness tampering in the congressional testimony of former Trump White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson.
Some Republicans additionally accused the resolution of funding “censorship activities” because it extended support for the Global Engagement Center, an agency within the State Department tasked with identifying and countering “propaganda and disinformation efforts aimed at undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States.”
With the legislation apparently dead on arrival, Speaker Johnson now has an incredibly narrow window to get a deal done and stave off a shutdown. Reportedly, his backup plan would be to hold a vote on a new “clean” government funding bill, dropping the disaster and farm aid – as well as other expensive elements of the bill – and punt those issues to next year. But cutting some of that spending might cost Democratic support, and some Republican hardliners could still oppose the ᵴtriƥped-down deal.
Musk took a victory lap on Wednesday as the odds of Congress passing the original bill collapsed, and touted posts about how X – not Musk himself – had supposedly saved the American people from wasteful government spending. “Your elected representatives have heard you and now the terrible bill is dead,” he wrote. “The voice of the people has triumphed!”
Or the voice of the world’s richest man, anyway.
