WASHINGTON – Elon Musk said Wednesday morning that Congress should not approve the funding bill negotiated by House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.).
Nevertheless, the bill is likely to pass this week, but opposition from Musk, the Republicans’ newly appointed budget guru, could signal trouble for the party’s vaunted task force on “government efficiency” and its austerity targets next year.
Johnson said he promised Musk and fellow billionaire Vivek Ramaswamy that things will be different once Republicans take control of the Senate and the White House. President-elect Donald Trump has said he would appoint Musk and Ramaswamy as directors of a non-governmental advisory group called the Department of Government Efficiency, a reference to the “doge” internet meme and joke cryptocurrency that Musk has advocated. (Ramaswamy is an investor in HuffPost’s parent company, BuzzFeed.)
“Elon and Vivek and I are in a text message chain together, and I explained to them the background to this,” Johnson said on Fox News on Wednesday morning, adding that he spoke to Ramaswamy around midnight. “Remember, guys, we still only have a razor-thin margin of Republicans. So any bill must get votes from Democrats.”
Republicans will have an even smaller margin in the House of Representatives next year, but Johnson said he has laid out an optimistic strategy that a three-month funding bill would give Republicans a chance to put their stamp on March spending. when Trump will be president. and the DOGE company “is working on all six cylinders.”
Despite their late communication, Musk wrote on his social media platform X Wednesday that the bill “should not be passed,” echoing complaints from far-right members of the House of Representatives who always vote against such funding bills.
“Welcome to the show,” Rep. Eli Crane (R-Ariz.) wrote in response to Musk’s post. “Remember all those members a few weeks ago kissing your ass and talking loudly about budget cuts? Now it’s time to see how they vote.”
If the bill fails, as Musk said it should, the federal government would partially shut down at midnight Friday. As of Wednesday morning, there is no alternative piece of legislation that could plausibly pass in Congress between now and then.
The impact of a short weekend shutdown would be minimal. A prolonged shutdown will send nonessential federal workers home, disrupt the processing of applications for things like passports and government benefits, reduce food safety inspections, close restrooms in national parks and have a small negative impact on economic growth.
Musk currently has no official role in government, but he has Trump’s ear and has been embraced by Republicans in Congress. He previously boasted that he could easily identify $2 trillion in cuts to the federal government’s nearly $7 trillion annual budget — a wildly unrealistic goal without addressing Medicare, Social Security or other parts of the budget such as the military. touch that Trump or the Republicans have said should be off limits. Musk has not specified where he would get the $2 trillion from since then pitching the song for the first time in October.
But Musk and Ramaswamy have said they will explore new ways to fire federal workers and make cuts without Congress — untested strategies that are likely to lead to constitutional showdowns in federal court since the Constitution makes the legislature responsible for spending and taxes. Others in Trump’s inner circle have also said the newly elected president would pursue massive layoffs and unilateral cuts.
In Congress, Republicans’ slim margin in the House of Representatives will allow small groups of lawmakers to make demands for higher federal spending in their districts. But Johnson suggested that Musk and Ramaswamy understand the situation, and that they agree with him that making massive cuts next year will be easier, even if they are not happy with the three-month emergency law.
“They said, ‘It’s not directed at you, Mr. Chairman, but we don’t like the expenditure.’ I said, ‘Guess what, guys, neither do I. We have to get this done because here is the key. By doing this we are cleaning the house and getting ready for Trump to come back with the America First agenda,” Johnson told Fox News. “We will finally be able to do the things we have wanted to do for the past few years.”
