Musk says he'll fund 'moderate' Democratic primary challengers
Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday claimed he will fund moderate primary challenges to incumbent Democrats in heavy-blue districts around the country.
"Oh … forgot to mention that I’m also going to be funding moderate candidates in heavily Democrat districts, so that the country can get rid of those who don’t represent them, like this jacka‑‑," Musk wrote Thursday night on his social media platform X.
The ally of President-elect Trump made the comments in response to a clip of a floor speech from Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, who slammed Musk's threat to primary Republicans if they supported an earlier bipartisan spending proposal this week.
"Can you image what the next two years are going to be like if every time that Congress works its will and then there's a tweet? Or from an individual who has no official portfolio, who threatens members on the Republican side with a primary and they succumb?" Neal said in a fiery floor speech Thursday night.
Musk, the co-leader of Trump's "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) with Vivek Ramaswamy, fired off dozens of posts Wednesday ripping apart a stopgap spending measure that would have funded the government through March 14 and averted a government shutdown.
At one point on Wednesday, Musk called for any lawmaker who supported the bill to be voted out of office in 2026.
Amid his barrage of opposition came a flurry of House Republicans echoing their concerns over the measure, and ultimately Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance came out against the continuing resolution (CR) by Wednesday afternoon.
The pressure campaign from the DOGE leaders, Trump and Vance torpedoed the bill, raising conversations over Musk's growing influence over Capitol Hill and whether his posts and primary threat alone moved the needle among GOP members.
Musk, the world's richest man, loaded nearly $250 million into the presidential election in support of Trump and has maintained his political action committee, America PAC, will continue to support Republicans through the midterms and will be involved in primary contests.
Forced back to the drawing board, House Republicans released a second "clean" continuing resolution Thursday to avert the looming December deadline and suspend the debt limit, a request from Trump.
Despite an enforcement from Musk and Trump, the bill failed to clear the chamber on Thursday, sending House Republicans scrambling to reach a plan C ahead of the Friday night deadline