On Tuesday night, House Speaker Mike Johnson seemed poised to advance a funding deal to avoid a government shutdown. By Wednesday afternoon, the wealthiest man in the world was publicly calling for lawmakers to be ousted if they voted for the bill — and Republicans weren’t sure if it would even make it to the floor.
In a fight between Musk and Johnson — between a possible shutdown and funding the government on time — Musk may have won. At least, he’s created a lot of chaos for GOP leaders.
“Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!” wrote Musk, a close adviser to President-elect Donald Trump. The legislation, negotiated between Johnson and Senate Democrats, is also “criminal,” according to Musk, a “piece of pork,” and it simply “should not pass.”
Not only is Johnson’s job now (again) in danger, but Republican lawmakers are also getting a taste of what next year will look like with Musk trying to call the shots from the outside. And many of them are happy to let him.
“Elon Musk is going to cause problems in Congress,” said Rep. Troy Nehls, a Texas Republican. “But it’s really, really good.”
“He’s going to expose the waste, fraud and abuse you’ve seen in the House and in Congress for decades,” Nehls added, as he declined to say whether he would support Johnson for the speakership in January. “It’s going to rub people wrong here. They’re not going to want Elon Musk exposing our dirty laundry.”
And Tennessee Rep. Tim Burchett said he welcomes Musk “to the fight.”
The left has plenty of wealthy benefactors, Burchett said. But “all of a sudden you have somebody supporting the conservative cause and everybody gets up in arms about it. I don’t have a problem with it.”
After Musk and House conservatives revolted against the spending plan, Johnson was reportedly weighing a “plan B” on Wednesday afternoon. That bill would include only disaster aid and a “clean” continuing resolution to keep the government funded at current levels. There’s another possibility, though: Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance put out a joint statement slamming the original Johnson deal and said Republicans needed to “set the country up for success in 2025” by dealing with a debt ceiling deadline now instead of in the early days of their administration.
“The only way to do that is with a temporary funding bill WITHOUT DEMOCRAT GIVEAWAYS combined with an increase in the debt ceiling,” they wrote.
As of Wednesday afternoon, some members said they weren’t swayed by Musk’s pressure campaign. At least not yet.
“I don’t believe in shutdowns,” Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican, told NOTUS when asked about Musk’s comments. “They’re a blunt instrument, and we end up paying people for not working.”
Smith had planned to vote for the government funding package. “We don’t need disruption,” he said, pointing to conflicts overseas.
Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart, too, said “hell yeah,” he was going to vote for the spending bill. He told NOTUS he doesn’t want to shut down the government and “put our security at risk.”
“I’m not sure if anybody would think that it’s a good idea to just literally shut down the federal government while people are struggling from the hurricanes and while China is on the move,” he said — although he made sure to add that he respects Musk.
(Musk actually does think it’s a good idea. “‘Shutting down’ the government (which doesn’t actually shut down critical functions btw) is infinitely better than passing a horrible bill,” he wrote on the social media website he owns, X.
Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, also said he would have supported Johnson’s funding bill. He told NOTUS plenty of its provisions are policies Republicans have fought for, like aid for farmers.
“It’s easy to distort the bill,” he said earlier Wednesday of Musk’s complaints. “I think he’s wrong.”
Musk, a tech billionaire, will co-lead an advisory panel on government efficiency with former GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy during the Trump administration. Ramaswamy said Wednesday that he opposes the spending bill and sees the vote as an “early test” of whether Congress is actually committed to their panel’s cost-cutting agenda.
For some members, it’s not an easy calculus. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a Florida Republican, described the legislation as a “shit sandwich,” and said she is sympathetic to Musk’s views. But she told reporters she was undecided because the bill included disaster aid that would help her constituents.
“We’re damned if we do, damned if we don’t,” she summarized.
New Jersey GOP Rep. Jeff Van Drew, meanwhile, said he wouldn’t vote for the spending package, and he hoped it was the last such spending bill assembled at the final moment before a shutdown deadline, outside the regular appropriations process.
Even so, he told NOTUS, changing how Congress functions is “going to be very bumpy.”
“We have a very, very narrow majority, and anybody who thinks it’s going to be smooth sailing in the House of Representatives is wrong,” he said.
Others hope Republicans risk a shutdown, like Musk prefers. Rep. Ralph Norman of South Carolina told reporters he believed Johnson simply should have advanced a conservative bill and insisted that the Democratic-held Senate accept it.
As for Musk’s role in all of this, Norman said, “that’s for each member to decide.”
“I just appreciate and value him getting involved in the political process,” he told NOTUS.
On the Senate side, Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said he sees Musk’s and Ramaswamy’s views as just what they are: opinions.
“Everybody in America is entitled to their opinion,” he told NOTUS. “I appreciate the opinion of those two gentlemen. It’s just one more factor that I have to work into my equation.”
Johnson, for his part, insists things will change in the new year.
He told Fox News that Musk and Ramaswamy messaged him Tuesday night about the bill in a group chat: “They say, ‘This is not directed to you, Mr. Speaker, but we don’t like the spending,’” he recalled. “I said, ‘Guess what fellas? I don’t either.’”
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Haley Byrd Wilt is a reporter at NOTUS. Violet Jira is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.