After Donald Trump won the 2024 Presidential Election, he began selecting individuals to serve on his cabinet, and he named Elon Musk as the leader of government efficiency.
The leader of the Department of Government Efficiency is a moniker that’s given; however, it is not an official government position and does not represent the official name of the commission.
That being said, the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency is tasked with restructuring the Federal Government of the U.S. and removing regulations in order to reduce expenditures and increase government efficiency.
Elon Musk successfully had a bill killed that prevents government shutdowns
Since being named leader of this department, Elon Musk has targeted a spending bill that’s meant to prevent the government from shutting down. Musk took to X on Wednesday, Dec. 18, posting about his opposition to this specific bipartisan funding bill.
President-elect Donald Trump and Elon Musk watch the launch of the sixth test flight of the SpaceX Starship rocket in Brownsville, Texas, November 19, 2024.
Musk’s stance is seen as a challenge to the authority of Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, as well as other Republican figures who helped craft the bill. Musk induced an uproar and, somehow, managed to make budget negotiations take a chaotic turn, which seems to have increase the odds of a government shut down.
NBC News reported that House Majority Leader Steve Scalise confirmed that the bill was dead on Wednesday evening.
Regarding one of Musk’s posts, he said that a proposed congressional pay raise would be 40% while, according to Congressional Research Service, the potential pay increase in 2025 has already been set at 3.8%.
Musk also made posts calling the bill ‘criminal,’ due to the amount of money the bill intended to spend and said that the bill would be ‘funding bioweapon labs.’
Musk attempted to strengthen his bioweapon lab argument by citing a portion of the bill’s text, via screenshot, that was in relation to ‘biocontainment laboratories’ that would be used in order to better prepare the U.S. when combatting infectious diseases.
According to NBC News, Musk was one of the first political figures to voice his opposition to the bill, but then, 13 hours later, President Trump spoke out in agreement with Musk.
The bill itself was a measure to keep the government funded from now until mid-March, and now, a government shutdown is anticipated to begin Saturday at 12:01 a.m., without action from congress.
Prior to Musk’s newfound role, he has never held political office, yet his ability to influence the public is steadily increasing.
This article originally appeared on Shreveport Times: What bill did Elon Musk kill? Will there be a government shutdown?
