Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.) offered praise for tech billionaire Elon Musk and his career on Thursday, while acknowledging they may not always see eye-to-eye on political issues.
"I admire Mr. Musk. He’s been involved in very important parts of American society: AI, SpaceX and other kinds of things,” Fetterman told reporters on Capitol Hill in an interview Thursday.
“Yes, he is on a different team, but that doesn’t make me an enemy,” he continued. “I don’t ... [am not] automatically going to become a critic."
The Pennsylvania Democrat added, "It’s like, ‘Hey, he has made our economy and our nation better.' And our politics are different, and I don’t agree with some of the things that he might say, but that doesn’t make him, like I said, an enemy."
Musk responded to Fetterman's remarks Thursday in a post on the social platform X, which he owns.
"Hard not to like @SenFettermanPA. He puts country over party," he wrote.
The senator's comments came after Musk was named by President-elect Trump to lead a new "Department of Government Efficiency" (DOGE) alongside entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy.
Fetterman said earlier this year that the SpaceX CEO, who has been a staunch Trump ally and stumped for him on the campaign trail, has an appeal with a demographic Democrats have a hard time identifying with.
“Most endorsements don’t count for much in this business, but Musk is … incredibly popular, and he has an appeal to a demographic that Democrats have struggled with,” Fetterman said during an October appearance on NewsNation's "The Hill Sunday."
“To some people that they see him as, 'That’s Tony Stark,'” he added. “He’s the world’s richest man, and he’s undeniably a brilliant guy.”
Fetterman has demonstrated on multiple occasions that he is willing to criticize his own party on issues. Recently, he's shown openness to confirming some of Trump's Cabinet nominees when he returns to the White House in January. That includes Mehmet Oz, the Republican he beat in the general election for the Pennsylvania Senate seat.
He's also supported President Biden offering clemency to the president-elect for his New York hush money conviction, after Biden announced he would pardon his own son, Hunter Biden.
