With House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) increasingly on the ropes, many Republicans are looking for a potential replacement.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) on Thursday floated an outside-the-box possibility: X owner Elon Musk.
"The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress," wrote Paul on X. "Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk . . . think about it . . . nothing’s impossible. (not to mention the joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds)."
Paul is correct that the speaker of the House of Representatives does not need to be an elected member, which makes it theoretically possible for Musk to get the job should enough members of Congress choose him.
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However, electing Musk as speaker would certainly raise massive questions about conflicts of interest given the fact that his companies, most notably the private space exploration firm SpaceX, have contracts with the federal government.
"Can the richest man in the world with tens of billions in government contracts serve as both house speaker and shadow president?" wondered The Bulwark's Sam Stein.
Musk also has a long history of promoting conspiracy theories and outright anti-Semitism that could potentially cause political headaches for some swing-district Republicans.
