The billionaire SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk is letting his thoughts be known and supporting the candidate for ongoing Speaker of the United States of House Representatives election 2023.
The Speaker of the House election began on January 1, 2023. After six rounds of voting, no candidate could gain the required majority votes to win the third-highest post in the country and replace Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
McCarthy, the House Minority Leader, was assured of winning the speaker election, but several Republicans tended to switch their vote pending the election’s outcome after 3 days of ballots.
This article covers recent news where Elon Musk endorsed Kevin McCarthy for House speaker and why a few Republicans are not supporting McCarthy despite him winning the nomination for Speaker of the House.
Elon Musk Endorses Kevin McCarthy For House Speaker
Elon Musk endorsed Kevin McCarthy for the Speaker of the House election and tweeted in his favor urging his 110 million followers to support McCarthy.
Kevin McCarthy has been California Representative in the U.S. House since 2019 and a Republican Minority Leader.
With 11 votes short of making up for the majority votes, McCarthy faced 11 unsuccessful ballots in his run to be Speaker of the House.
In his Tweet, Musk asked his followers, “If not McCarthy, then seriously, who?”
His Tweet also read, “Kevin McCarthy should be Speaker.”
McCarthy has been criticized by many Republicans, including Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida, as the Speaker bid continues. Twenty Republicans deny their votes to McCarthy. These people are right-winged conservatives led by the Freedom Caucus. The House currently has no active Congress member as the speaker vote is delaying the election process and pushing back legislation.
Elon Musk endorsed Kevin McCarthy not only in the speaker election but he previously also supported him in the midterms.
Musk and McCarthy have known each other in the past. SpaceX operates in Bakersfield, California, within the GOP lawmaker’s district. In August, McCarthy hosted a private Republican fundraiser retreat in Wyoming, attended by Musk, who led a private chat with the GOP leader.
In early 2020, the CEO complained that Democrat-led California, especially where he lived and where Tesla was situated, had become the land of taxes, litigation, and over-regulation from the land of opportunity.
Later in the same year, he declared that he had moved to Republican-led Texas. He added, “In my opinion, Silicon Valley or the Bay Area has too much influence on the world.”
In November, McCarthy blamed the White House for unfairly targeting Elon Musk for his political views. He stated, “The government is running after someone who wants free speech? What do they have to look at Twitter about? I think the Americans have spoken on this, I think our First Amendment stands up, and they should stop picking on Elon Musk.”
Earlier, the owner of Twitter indicated that he would endorse Florida Governor Ron DeSantis for president, and now Musk endorses Kevin McCarthy for the Speaker of the House. It is believed that he is disappointed in the Joe Biden administration. When asked whether he would support the Florida Governor for the White House, Musk said,” Yes.”
He Tweeted in the same month, “My preference for the 2024 presidential election is someone sensible and centrist. I had believed that would be the case for the Biden administration, but I have been disappointed.”
Why Republicans won’t vote for Kevin McCarthy as U.S. House Speaker
Since Republicans have a narrow majority in the 118th Congress, Kevin McCarthy, who was assured of winning the speaker election, is having difficulty gaining enough votes to be elected as the next House Speaker and succeed Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
Some 19-20 Republicans are against McCarthy’s bid for the Speaker in the several rounds of the ballots in the House in the last week. Though he easily won the nomination for Speaker within the Republican conference, he still needed 218 votes if all members were present.
These anti-McCarthy Republicans are conservative, anti-establishment lawmakers who claim the California Republican has not done anything enough to win their votes.
The Republicans opposing McCarthy demanded to see their conservative ideas more prominently reflected in the chamber’s election agenda. Many of these non-supporters are members of the House Freedom Caucus, born out of the Tea Party movement of the late 2000s and 2010s.
The caucus on the party’s right constantly rebelled against the then-speaker John Boehner.
It has a long history of fighting with GOP leaders, including Paul Ryan and Eric Cantor. Some of the most vocal McCarthy critics, like Matt Gaetz of Florida, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, said McCarthy has not listened to or given conservative voices enough of a platform in the House. They say McCarthy is closely aligned with a broken system and will do little to change how Washington is managed.
“The Americans want us to turn a page. They do not want excuses or performance art. They want action and results,” Mr. Biggs Tweeted while launching a longshot bid for the Speaker himself.
He called for amending the “status quo” by reforming things like how bills can be amended and how bills are obtained to the floor.
The withheld votes seek to extract various concessions in exchange for their votes. These include promises to vote on bills that address congressional term limits, border security, changes in the process to evict a sitting speaker, etc.
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