US President-elect Donald Trump has commented on rumours that billionaire Elon Musk is informally heading his administration because of his great influence on the Republican Party. According to the politician, the businessman will never manage to sway him to the post of the American leader.
Speaking Sunday at conservative group Turning Point USA’s annual AmericaFest event in Phoenix, the capital of the southwestern US state of Arizona, Trump dismissed the idea that he had “ceded the presidency” to Musk, calling it a “hoax” concocted by his political opponents.
“No, he’s not going to be president,” he told a cheering crowd. “You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country.”
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX who was born in South Africa, is constitutionally ineligible to serve as president.
Musk has been one of Trump’s most vocal supporters in recent months. The entrepreneur sponsored the Republican’s election campaign, and after Trump’s election victory, Musk, along with businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, may head the new US Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Musk has also repeatedly criticised the policies of the current US administration, both domestic and foreign. For example, he recently said that military aid to Ukraine was one of the worst decisions of the White House. In addition, the businessman expressed the opinion that the US should stay away from involvement in foreign military conflicts.
Earlier, The Washington Post published an article indicating that Trump’s entourage was unhappy that Musk had effectively become a “shadow president” of the US after his interference in the process of passing a bill to fund the federal government.
