Musk Calls US Funding Bill a ‘Crime,’ Fueling GOP Opposition

(Bloomberg) — Elon Musk urged lawmakers to shut down the federal government rather than accept a deal House Speaker Mike Johnson struck to temporarily fund operations, fueling opposition among congressional Republicans.

The public attack from the world’s richest man and close adviser to President-elect Donald Trump complicates the path forward for Johnson, who negotiated the package with Democrats ahead of a Friday deadline.

Musk, the country’s largest political donor, put House Republicans on notice that they risk becoming a target if they support the deal, declaring any lawmaker who does so should be voted out of office in two years.

“The more I learn, the more obvious it becomes that this spending bill is a crime,” Musk posted on his social media platform X. He added in another post that a government shutdown “is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill.”

Trump has tapped Musk to advise the incoming administration on cutting government spending, making his campaign against the bill a signal of what’s to come from his Department of Government Efficiency.

The president-elect so far hasn’t taken a public stand on the spending deal.

The House and Senate have agreed to extend government funding into March but the deal includes some $29 billion to replenish the Disaster Relief Fund, more than $30 billion for agriculture programs, and billions more in assorted other disaster-related spending, outraging spending hawks.

The Friday deadline to avoid a government shutdown leaves little time for haggling.

Speaking on Fox News Wednesday, Johnson said he had been texting with Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who will be working alongside Musk on the government efficiency initiative.

“Elon and Vivek and I are on a text chain together, and I was explaining to them the background of this,” Johnson said. He added that they realized that with a narrow GOP majority in the House and Democrats in control of the Senate for now, Johnson must work with the other party to move legislation forward.

“They said, ‘It’s not directed to you, Mr. Speaker, but we don’t like the spending,’” he said. “And I said, ‘Guess what, fellas, I don’t either.’”

Musk is becoming a formidable power in the Republican party through his wealth and control of the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. He poured at least $274 million into political groups in 2024, a spending spree that helped put Trump in the White House and made the largest US political donor in the election cycle.

Johnson’s struggle for a deal to keep the US government open after Friday is an ominous sign for his shrinking and fractious Republican majority’s ability to push through Trump’s early priorities.

It’s the same fight between traditional Republicans and raucous conservatives that ultimately led to the ouster last year of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. But in the new Congress, Johnson will have an even smaller majority and a president eager to leverage Republican control of Washington.

Election losses, combined with Trump’s selection of three House Republicans to serve in his new administration, will leave the party with a one-vote margin through at least early April, when special elections will be held for vacancies.

That’s right in the middle of an anticipated push to quickly pass a budget blueprint on a party-line vote followed by partisan bills addressing US border security, taxes and other budget-related issues.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Johnson’s top lieutenant, mentioned the narrow majority on Tuesday as he introduced Johnson at a press conference.

“The leader of the House today and the majority by the narrowest of margins in January,” Scalise said. “But it doesn’t matter. Having the majority is what’s important.”

Dealmaking

But some conservatives openly complained about the speaker’s bipartisan dealmaking on add-ons, which they deemed unnecessary.

“It’s the same pattern of behavior,” Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia said, adding that money for farmers and natural disasters had become an excuse to further bloat government funding.

Greene predicted more Democrats than Republicans would ultimately vote for the package, an outcome that would infuriate Johnson’s right flank just weeks before a vote to reinstall him as speaker.

Johnson on Tuesday said he wasn’t concerned about keeping his gavel when the House votes for a speaker on Jan. 3.

He also dismissed any suggestions that such fears had motivated some of his decisions on the negotiations.

But the reality is he only has his job because a restless few axed his predecessor for the first time in US history.

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Bloomberg