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President-elect Donald Trump laughed off liberal angst over tech mogul Elon Musk’s growing political influence and affirmed that the space and Tesla guru won’t be president.
Last week, after Musk helped gin up political opposition to a government funding measure, Democrats dubbed him “President Musk” and seemingly angled to exploit his and Trump’s egos to pit them against each other.
“All the different hoaxes, and the new one is, ‘President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk,’ ” Trump, 78, griped to a crowd at Turning Point Action’s AmericaFest in Phoenix, Ariz., on Sunday. “No, no. That’s not happening.
“I’m safe. You know why? He can’t be. He wasn’t born in this country.”
Under Article II of the Constitution, only natural-born citizens can be eligible for the presidency. Musk was born in South Africa and became a US citizen in 2002.
Since Trump’s election victory, Musk, 53, has spent weeks hunkered down in at the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago, Fla., estate, sitting in on key meetings with Trump and offering his advice on policy decisions.
A chorus of Democrats have latched onto the world’s richest man’s pronounced political influence and worked to get under Trump’s skin by trying to suggest that the president-elect’s sway has been diminished.
But Trump declined to take the bait Sunday and instead heaped praise on Musk, crowing about how the SpaceX founder’s company caught its Starship super heavy lift rocket with Mechazilla in October at Starbase.
The president-elect also commended Musk for helping him win in Pennsylvania and supplying Internet access through Musk’s Starlink set-up to storm-ravaged stretches of North Carolina.
“Elon’s done an amazing job. Isn’t it nice to have some smart people that we can rely on? Don’t we want that? He’s done a great job,” Trump said.
“He’s a great guy, and we want to have him.”
Trump has tapped Musk, alongside biotech entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to helm the newly minted Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which despite its name, is not actually a government department.
Musk rankled Democrats and even some Republicans last week when he publicly assailed a compromise measure intended to prevent a government shutdown.
The billionaire tycoon railed against a litany of provisions in the more than 1,500-page bill in X posts for his 208.7 million followers to see, whipping up opposition against it.
Later, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance came out publicly against the stopgap measure, sending House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) back to the drawing board.
Ultimately, the House of Representatives passed a dramatically pared-down spending patch to keep the government’s lights on through mid-March.
Johnson has also downplayed any concerns about Musk.
“I love Elon. He’s a force multiplier for us,” Johnson recently told a customer during a stop at Target, which was caught on video.