In a speech closing out Turning Point’s annual AmericaFest event, President-elect Donald Trump interrupted his post-election victory lap to address claims that Elon Musk is commandeering his presidency.
“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump told a massive crowd in Phoenix, Arizona, on Dec. 22.
“He can’t be. He wasn’t born in this country.”
The Constitution specifies that only natural born citizens can serve as president. While Musk, the founder of SpaceX, is an American citizen, he was born in South Africa to non-American parents before moving to Canada and, eventually, the United States.
Talk of “President Musk” began among Democrats, who have been portraying the richest man in the world as a shadow leader in the wake of Trump’s November election victory.
That narrative gained steam during the continuing resolution battle, when Musk made numerous posts on his social media platform X, expressing opposition to the roughly 1,500-page funding bill that lawmakers initially advanced.
“Elon Musk ordered his puppet President-elect and House Republicans to break the bipartisan agreement reached to keep government open,” Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) wrote on X on Dec. 19 after that deal collapsed.
Lawmakers eventually passed a massively slimmed down bill on Dec. 20, hours before a government shutdown would have commenced.
Republicans and conservative commentators such as Mark Levin have characterized the narrative as an attempt to drive a wedge between Trump and Musk.
In Phoenix, Trump appreciatively recalled how Musk stumped for him in a key battleground state, Pennsylvania, during the final weeks of the campaign.
He also offered a simple reason for working closely with Musk, a serial entrepreneur and the world’s wealthiest man, with a net worth approaching $430 billion.
“I like having smart people,” Trump said.
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