Elon Musk, the South African-born billionaire who has become Donald Trump’s omnipresent best friend since his victory in the 2024 presidential election, already has a lot of titles.
He’s the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Starlink. He’s co-chair of DOGE, for whatever that’s worth. He’s the self-appointed main character of the social media site he owns, X.
On Wednesday, after Musk tanked a Republican government funding bill, Democrats gave him another title: shadow president-elect.
“You have to ask Donald Trump if Elon Musk is the one making decisions,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen told HuffPost on Wednesday.
The Democratic messaging tack represents the party settling on a loose message for the early days of the second Trump administration, with leading senators labelling Trump’s billionaire-stocked Cabinet an oligarchy and preparing to argue the wealthy businessmen around Trump are setting the Republican agenda rather than the purportedly populist president-elect.
The idea that Musk is leading Trump, and not vice-versa, was clearly visible on Wednesday. Musk spent most of the morning and afternoon on a social media spree condemning the spending package, occasionally spreading false information about it. Trump, meanwhile, did not weigh in on the bill at all, ultimately coming out against it only after reports that House Speaker Mike Johnson was crafting a backup plan.
“It’s clear who’s in charge, and it’s not President-elect Donald Trump,” Representative Pramila Jayapal wrote on social media. “Shadow President Elon Musk spent all day railing against Republicans’ [continuing resolution], succeeded in killing the bill, and then Trump decided to follow his lead.”
“Historians will be looking back, scratching their heads about our great democracy, wondering whether stuff went awry because of the impact of personal wealth, and it is all about his money and his control of certain institutions that are supposed to convey information,” Senator Richard Blumenthal added of Musk.
Musk celebrated Trump’s decision to come out against the bill in predictable fashion.
One Democratic aide, requesting anonymity to speak frankly about party strategy, acknowledged the Democratic Party was trying to drive a wedge between Trump and Musk, who spent a quarter-billion dollars helping to elect the Republican to office. Both men are known for their enormous self-regard, and Musk’s constant presence at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence since the election has annoyed other Trump aides.
But Democratic reaction to the chaos in the House wasn’t all glee.
Senator Peter Welch, whose state has been badly ravaged by floods, lamented House Republicans’ decision to abandon a government funding deal that would have provided $100 billion in disaster aid to several storm-wracked states, including Vermont.
“That’s terrible for communities that are really in desperate need of the disaster relief… so it’s pretty reckless for this to blow up because Elon Musk is scaring the Republicans,” he said.
The bill also included disaster aid for North Carolina, where Trump campaigned with promises to aid communities after historic flooding earlier this year.
In a statement posted online Wednesday, Trump said Republicans want to “pay for disaster relief” but only if Democrats agree to drop their priorities in the bill and also raise the debt limit, another major wrinkle in negotiations over legislation to keep the government open past Friday.
Not all Democrats are lining up to bash Musk, with Representative Ro Khanna ― a Democrat who represents California’s Silicon Valley ― leading the way in arguing Democrats should try to work with the billionaire, if only to ultimately expose the hollowness of his rhetoric.
Musk’s role in the still-nascent Trump administration is at least somewhat controversial among the public: A YouGov poll found 48% of Americans had a favorable opinion of Musk, while 42% had an unfavorable opinion. The Associated Press found the public generally split in their opinions of Musk, while a Quinnipiac University poll released Wednesday found a 53% majority of the public disapproves of Musk playing a prominent role in the Trump administration.