Could Elon Musk, who holds main sway within the incoming Donald Trump administration, someday turn out to be president?

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On Sunday, Trump answered with a powerful no, pointing to US guidelines about being born within the nation.

“He’s not gonna be president, that I can tell you,” Trump informed a Republican convention in Phoenix, Arizona.

“You know why he can’t be? He wasn’t born in this country,” Trump stated of the Tesla and SpaceX boss, who was born in South Africa.

The US Constitution requires {that a} president be a natural-born US citizen.

Responding to criticism

Trump was responding to criticism, notably from the Democratic camp, portraying the tech billionaire and world’s richest individual as “President Musk” for the outsized function he’s enjoying within the incoming administration.

As per ceding the presidency to Musk, Trump additionally assured the gang: “No, no that’s not happening.”

The affect of Musk, who will function Trump’s “efficiency czar,” has turn out to be a spotlight level for Democratic assaults, with questions raised over how an unelected citizen can wield a lot energy.

And there may be even rising anger amongst Republicans after Musk trashed a authorities funding proposal this week in a blizzard of posts – a lot of them wildly inaccurate – to his greater than 200 million followers on his social media platform X.

Alongside Trump, Musk in the end helped strain Republicans to renege on a funding invoice they’d painstakingly agreed upon with Democrats, pushing the United States to the brink of budgetary paralysis that will have resulted in a authorities shutdown simply days earlier than Christmas.

Congress in the end reached an settlement in a single day Friday to Saturday, avoiding huge halts to authorities companies.

Is it a superb – or unhealthy – factor that Elon Musk gained’t be United States president?

Let us know by clicking on the remark tab under this text or by emailing info@thesouthafrican.com or sending a WhatsApp to 060 011 021 1

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