House Republicans suddenly find themselves scrambling to mollify Elon Musk, who has been venting his rage at them for voting for a Trump-backed domestic policy bill he calls a “disgusting abomination.”
After Mr. Musk threatened to “fire all politicians who betrayed the American people,” Republicans from Speaker Mike Johnson on down are trying to manage an unmanageable tech billionaire who has become one of the most powerful figures in Republican politics.
Even as Mr. Johnson insisted at a news conference on Wednesday that “policy differences are not personal,” he admitted that Mr. Musk’s hard turn against the bill had come as a surprise given the “happy texts” they had shared 24 hours earlier. Mr. Johnson said he had tried again to talk to Mr. Musk but could not get through.
“I called Elon last night, and he didn’t answer, but, uh, hope to talk to him today,” he said.
Mr. Musk’s opposition to the bill has put House Republicans, who tend to fall in line behind whatever Mr. Trump demands, in the awkward position of straining to satisfy two authority figures in their lives who are now at odds. They cannot afford to break with either. Their voters want and expect them to support Mr. Trump no matter what.
But Mr. Musk’s explosion of anger against the bill — which could hurt his electric-car company Tesla and cause the federal deficit to surge — has raised an unpredictable new threat. Even if he does not spend a dime against Republican lawmakers, Mr. Musk could use his megaphone to target them, as he did on Wednesday when he encouraged his 220 million followers on X to “Call your Senator, Call your Congressman, Bankrupting America is NOT ok! KILL the BILL.”
Interviews with more than half a dozen House Republicans revealed a widespread wariness of crossing Mr. Musk. Many of them are quietly appalled at him for being “disrespectful” of the president — they see him as throwing a hissy fit because he did not get his way on his pet projects — but they are unwilling to criticize him publicly for fear of becoming a more pointed target of his ire. There is also an awareness that while Mr. Musk might pick 100 fights between now and the next election, Mr. Trump will remain the overwhelming force guiding their political lives.