President-elect Donald Trump took a swipe at ‘close pal’ Elon Musk as critics question who is really in charge between the close pair as the 78-year-old prepares to return to the White House.
It comes after Republicans had to scramble to avert a government shutdown late last week after the tech billionaire and then the president-elect criticized the first bill negotiated, tanking it.
It lead to a series of digs by Democrats and Trump critics who mockingly started to refer to Trump’s close ally as ‘President Musk.’
Speaking for more than hour at the conservative Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest conference in Phoenix on Sunday, Trump vented that even if Musk wanted to be president, he couldn’t.
‘No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you,’ Trump told the crowd.
‘And I’m safe. You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,’ he continued.
WHERE ELON MUSK WAS BORN?
To become president, the U.S. Constitution requires a person to be a natural-born citizen. But Musk was born in South Africa.
The world’s richest man spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help the Republican president-elect win a second term and has been a near permanent presence at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home ever since.
SO FAR…
After Musk criticized the bipartisan negotiated spending deal last week helping tank it, Republicans put forward another GOP-only proposal which House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) referred to as the ‘Musk-Johnson’ deal.
On the House floor, Democratic lawmakers blasted ‘President Musk’ for sending Congress scrambling in the 11th hour before the government shutdown deadline.
Online, Trump critics have seized on ‘President Musk’ and ridiculed Trump with memes featuring Musk sitting in the Oval Office with Trump standing behind him and other images suggesting it’s the billionaire who is actually in charge.
To become president, the U.S. Constitution requires a person to be a natural-born citizen. But Musk was born in South Africa.
