On Dec. 19, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) floated the idea of Elon Musk being the speaker of the House after the billionaire tech businessman publicly opposed a bipartisan bill to avert a government shutdown.
As crazy as that might sound, some fellow Republicans support the idea, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.). She said that she would be open to supporting Musk for speaker, an idea proposed by other Republicans as Congress barrelled towards government shutdown Friday night.
Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) also endorsed Musk for speaker, though he added that he would also be happy with Musk’s partner in the Department of Government Efficiency, Vivek Ramaswamy, taking up the role. He told talk show host Benny Johnson, “Let them choose one of them, I don't care which one, to be their Speaker,” Lee said. “That would revolutionize everything; it would break up the firm.”
And, of course, Democrats were outraged and started trolling President-elect Donald Trump by calling Musk the “real president.”
“The US Congress this week agreed to fund our government,” Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote on Wednesday. “Elon Musk, who became $200 BILLION richer since Trump was elected, objected. Are Republicans beholden to the American people? Or President Musk? This is oligarchy at work.”
Recently elected Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar (D-Texas) wondered to reporters on Thursday: “If Elon Musk is kind of cosplaying co-president here, I don’t know why Trump doesn’t just hand him the Oval Office, or Speaker Johnson should maybe just hand Elon Musk the gavel if they just want that billionaire to run the country.”
According to CBS News, Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) joined the fray, repeatedly invoking “President Musk” while speaking with reporters on Thursday.
“Welcome to the Elon Musk presidency,” Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) wrote on X.
The concept of Musk for Speaker of the House is surely intriguing, evoking two questions:
- Is it legal?
- Has it ever been tried before?
The answer is yes on both counts.
On the first question, the U.S. Constitution does not require the speaker to be a member of Congress, although historically, every Speaker has been a House member.
As to whether it has ever been tried before, the answer is actually yes. For example, former Secretary of State Colin Powell was nominated in 2013 and 2015, and Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-Wis.) and Joe Biden were nominated in 2019.
It's certainly an interesting concept, but it hasn't happened yet.
We’d like to know what our readers think.
- What do you think about the idea of a speaker who is not an elected member of the House?
- Does it bother you that the richest man in the world with no elected experience can be speaker of the House?
- Given how dysfunctional Congress is, might it be a good idea to shake it up from the outside?
- If Musk became speaker, might that intimidate Trump? Could Trump handle becoming what some think could be a figurehead president, subservient to a younger, richer man? The balance is certainly complex, as is the relationship. Trump has already said he’s the man in charge. How will their dynamic evolve?
Nevins is co-publisher of The Fulcrum and co-founder and board chairman of the Bridge Alliance Education Fund.
Americans across the political spectrum have continued to ask about the late financier and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s connections among the political elite. (Angela Weiss/AFP)
A view of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on June 25, 2026. President Donald Trump jolted Republicans during a fiery appearance at the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday, scrapping a housing bill signing ceremony and clashing behind closed doors with a party rebel who challenged him over the Iran war. Trump had been expected to sign the bipartisan housing.
Only Trump doesn’t care about housing
It was August 15, 2024. Then candidate Donald Trump stepped out of his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club’s columned clubhouse to a gaggle of reporters. He was flanked by tables of groceries and signs showing the rising cost of food. Also on one of the tables was a dollhouse, meant to represent the equally alarming rise in housing prices.
It was a speech about the economy, the single most important issue of the 2024 election cycle, full of promises that went right to the heart of Americans’ anxieties. While former President Joe Biden and then Vice President Kamala Harris were contorting themselves to posture a good economy that just needed more time to recover from the pandemic, Trump was preying on voters’ very real fears of unaffordable gas, groceries, and homes. It was obviously a winning message.
In that speech, Trump promised, “We’re going to open up tracts of federal land for housing construction. We desperately need housing for people who can’t afford what’s going on now.”
As of mid-2023, there had been a housing shortage of nearly four million homes, according to the National Association of Realtors. Americans all over the country were either priced out of buying new homes due to low inventory, trapped in their existing homes by sky-high mortgage rates, or facing exorbitant rent hikes thanks to corporate investors buying up rental properties. Americans needed help, and Trump promised it.
Cut to March of 2026, when Trump reportedly told House Speaker Mike Johnson, “No one gives a sh*t about housing.”
That kind of thinking may explain why Trump this week suddenly announced he was canceling a signing ceremony for the bipartisan “21st Century ROAD to Housing Act,” a housing bill co-sponsored by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Tim Scott that passed the House 358-32 and was approved in the Senate on Monday.
Trump instead demanded Congress pass the SAVE America Act, his controversial election grievance bill that doesn’t have enough Republican support to get passed in the Senate.
It’s just the latest in a line of policy self-owns where Trump has seemingly intentionally made life more difficult for Republicans hoping to keep their majority. Despite midterm elections occurring in the midst of a blistering economy and an unpopular war, they were surely hoping the housing bill would give them something — anything — to brag about when they returned home to their districts.
And very much to the contrary, Americans do give a sh*t about housing. According to a recent survey by the Bipartisan Policy Center, a whopping 79% say the cost of housing is extremely or very important to them. Eighty-three percent say Congress should take action on the issue — like it just did. Eighty-nine percent say the House and Senate need to work together to pass affordable housing legislation — like they just did. And 63% say they would be more likely to vote for a lawmaker if they helped pass legislation to build more affordable homes and lower housing costs — like they just did.
There aren’t many issues that unite Americans like housing does, and very few bipartisan policy wins Congress can point to, and yet, Trump is holding that bill hostage in order to get his pet project — which doesn’t even have the support of his own party — pushed through.
If you’re trying to make sense of something so nonsensical, as I’m sure many Republican lawmakers are, it’s certainly sad but not actually all that complicated. Trump said what he needed to get reelected and then promptly abandoned his promises in order to pursue his own self-interests, even if those interests are bad for Republicans and bad for voters.
That’s just the kind of guy he is.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.