"critics of the world's richest man say he attained a new title: "shadow president" of the United States" [View all]

Elon Musk has never been elected to office. President-elect Donald Trump has not tapped him to serve in any role inside the government. Until the July assassination attempt, he never even publicly supported Trump.

But this week, critics of the world’s richest man say he attained a new title: “shadow president” of the United States.

In a matter of hours on Wednesday, Musk wielded his powerful X account to pressure House Republicans to torpedo a spending bill that would have kept the federal government open for three months. Musk’s rapid-fire messages — which included numerous false claims about the contents of the spending bill — ricocheted through Washington, where some lawmakers reported their phone lines were ringing all day with calls from constituents who saw Musk’s posts. More than 12 hours after Musk’s first post calling lawmakers to not pass the bill, Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance also put out a statement opposing the legislation, and House Republicans scrapped the deal.

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Musk’s outsize role in sending the federal government careening toward a potential shutdown before Christmas has alarmed Democrats, academics and watchdog groups, while some Republicans said his intervention was uninformed.

The tech billionaire’s swift accumulation of political power has sparked criticism that the incoming Trump administration will function like an oligarchy, with Musk pushing for policies that will further enrich him and his companies.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/politics/government/ar-AA1wbGZC

The outrage reverberated on X, which Musk owns and where “President Musk” became a trending topic.