Elon Musk takes on Washington, but can he take over?

Watching the year-end budget battles in Congress as we await President-elect Donald Trump's second term, I wonder: Will this era be remembered as the one when Trump was president and Elon Musk led the country ?

Trump has earned nicknames such as Captain Mayhem and worse for his unpredictable, ever-changing and easily distracted approach to government. But keen observers of Trump's political ups and downs understand a key to understanding the chaos: his mountainous self-esteem.

Like Glenn Closes' character in “Fatal Attraction,” the 45th and soon-to-be 47th president will not be ignored. The corporate class has taken notice, which explains the procession of CEOs, founders, venture capitalists and other tech sector “broligarchs” who have paraded at Mar-a-Lago in recent weeks to flatter and beg Trump.

So far it seems to have worked. “EVERYONE WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!” Trump shouted on Truth Social, his social media platform.

President-elect Trump has not yet been sworn in, but he is already pushing buttons and pulling the levers of power in his old and familiar style of upsets, veiled threats and insults. But now, as his inauguration approaches, Trump finds himself competing for headlines with another great champion, the world's richest human, Elon Musk.

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Musk spent a quarter of a billion dollars this year to get Trump elected, and lately he's been walking around Mar-a-Lago like he co-owns the place. He was reportedly on hand to welcome guests from Trump's tech world, including his space sector nemesis, Jeff Bezos.

Musk, whom Trump nominated to become co-leader of the so-called Department of Government Effectiveness (DOGE), which will not be a real government department but rather a presidential advisory commission, used his social media network Twitter, to exercise its new political powers.

We saw the apparent start of a new regime of attention in Musk's storm of tweets on Wednesday criticizing the congressional spending measure proposed by House Republicans this week.

Denouncing the more than 1,500-page measure as a piece of pork, he called on lawmakers from the Grand Old Party to oppose it.

Stop the theft of your taxpayers' money! read a post. This bill is criminal,” reads another.

He also said that any lawmaker who voted for the bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years! In other words, any Republican who defies Trump's wishes can expect Musk to use his money to support them.

It's something to see, this co-presidency which has not even taken office yet. This was summed up well on Thursday in a Bloomberg headline: “Trump and Musk threaten to shut down the United States and overhaul the Republican Party.”

Balanced budgets are easy to demand when you don't really have an obligation to come up with solutions and pay for them, as lawmakers say when they want to know how you fund your legislative dreams.

At stake, as the clock ticks toward a new year and new bills to pay, is another tentative spending plan. This is a temporary solution to funding shortfalls to maintain funds needed to cover government operating costs until early next year, long after House Republicans elect a new president and President-elect Trump will have been sworn in.

But, as often happens, by the time lawmakers laid eyes on the measure Tuesday, cost-conscious Republicans in particular derided it as a veritable Christmas tree, hanging on proposals as varied as restrictions on foreign investment, new health policies and, a local District of Columbia favorite, a new stadium site for Washington's commanders.

The bill included $100 billion in disaster aid, billions in farm aid and dozens of other side deals that pushed the final product to exceed 1,500 pages.

All of this was greeted by Musk's more than 100 tweets, which also contained a notable number of misleading or outright false claims of the sort that keep fact-checkers busy.

Sarcastic remarks about Chairman Musk began bubbling up within the ranks of both parties on Wednesday, followed on Thursday by frustrated budget hawk Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who took a different tack, suggesting Musk as Speaker of the House.

If Trump felt overshadowed, he didn't say so. He focused his energies against the legislation, calling for its rejection and proposing that Congress pass a clear continuing resolution with an increase in the debt ceiling.

But after that proposal was rejected Thursday evening, congressional leaders began working on a Plan C with less than 24 hours remaining to avoid a shutdown. Once again, the new effort did not have many results.

This sad affair shows the limits of Trumpism supported by Musk. With dozens of posts deleted, Musk has had the phones ringing in many Republican representatives' offices, demonstrating the impressive new political and media power he has acquired in the two years since his takeover of Twitter. But neither he nor Trump had any real guidance to give on how lawmakers from both parties could compromise and craft a bill that would allow the government to continue operating.

Is this a preview of the next four years?

I'm already feeling again what Yogi Berra called deja vu. Chaos is making a comeback, the product of an era where it is increasingly difficult to distinguish illusions from reality. It's always been part of politics, sure, but it's getting a viral boost from our new digital media baron.

Page is an American journalist, syndicated columnist and senior editorial board member of the Chicago Tribune.

Tribune Content Agency 2024. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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