Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, accused Elon Musk of leading the charge against the first stopgap funding bill earlier this week over language that would have imposed restrictions on China and limited his business interests there.
In a letter dated Friday to the four congressional leaders, DeLauro asserted that “President” Musk derailed the first iteration of the continuing resolution in order to “protect his wallet.”
Musk on Wednesday assailed the three-month CR over hundreds of billions in new spending, including a 40% pay increase for Congress, beyond what is needed to run the government for three months. His series of tweets mentioned nothing about China. However, the bill did include bipartisan provisions to limit and screen investment in China, The Hill reported.
In her letter, DeLauro expressed concerns regarding “potential conflicts of interest that unelected multibillionaire Elon Musk has wielded to sow last-minute chaos throughout the government funding process.” She decried that Republican leadership “caved at the last minute to the demands of ‘President’ Musk to shut down the government.”
The House on Friday passed a stopgap funding bill.
“'President’ Musk does not want to see a funding deal containing this provision be signed into law. Musk’s investments in China, and ties with its government, have only grown over the last few years — alongside his growing involvement in American politics,” she wrote.
Musk is CEO and largest stockholder in Tesla, which has a manufacturing plant in Shanghai.
“The Shanghai plant is Tesla’s largest car manufacturing facility — the Chinese gigafactory produced about 50 percent of Tesla’s global automobile output over the last year, and Tesla drew nearly a quarter of its global revenue in 2023 from sales of Chinese-made vehicles from the Shanghai factory,” she wrote.
Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, have been charged by President-elect Donald Trump with cutting $2 trillion from the federal budget by July 1, 2026, as the co-leaders of the Department of Government Efficiency.
Although calling out extraneous spending in a CR is consistent with that role, DeLauro instead accused Musk of a conflict of interest, writing that it “calls into question the real reason for Musk’s opposition to the original funding deal.”
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.