Tech billionaire Elon Musk has appeared unwavering in some of his actions in recent months, but his time in the spotlight during President Trump’s address to Congress seems to have resulted in a moment of unease, thanks to a bombardment of booing he received.
On Tuesday, March 4, Donald Trump addressed a joint session of Congress — running through what’s been regarded as a whirlwind of a first six weeks in office for the 45th & 47th US President’s return to the Whitehouse.
Along with his continued desire to make Greenland a part of the US, “tax cuts for everybody”, a promise to balance the federal budget, and even an “appreciated” letter from Ukraine’s President Zelensky which mentioned a readiness to negotiate for peace, President Trump also didn’t hesitate to celebrate Elon Musk.
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Specially emphasizing the cost-cutting initiatives of DOGE — the newly formed Department of Government Efficiency to reduce spending on a federal level — Trump gives a huge shoutout to its heading by the Tesla CEO, who stands up in the gallery even before his name is mentioned.
While plenty of cheers can be heard from the many Republicans across the room, a flurry of boos can be heard cutting through the cheers just as much.
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Trump continued to highlight DOGE’s cost-cutting intended to utilize extra funds to fight inflation, but Musk — while saluting and smiling in appreciation to the President’s remarks — can’t help but seem to look uncomfortably displeased looking around to his very mixed response from across the room.
Supposedly being well aware of the many boos from the Democrats himself, it looks like Trump wasn’t afraid to steer into it himself. Further into his address regarding Musk, Trump said: “Thank you, Elon. He’s working very hard. He didn’t need this”.
“Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Even this side appreciates it, I believe. They just don’t want to admit that”.
Later, Trump goes into how a list of unnecessary spending, regarded as “scams”, has been discovered and “swiftly terminated” by Musk’s team.
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Afterward, Musk to social media on X (formerly Twitter) to post on two fronts. One was in regard to his opinion that the Democrats only cheer for another country, apparently Ukraine, and “hate America”.
The other was a post after the Republican bill to ban transgender athletes in women's sports was blocked in the US Senate, in a very tight 51-45 vote. In the post, the X platform owner was convinced that the Republican party will be able to get 60 senators in the US senate during the next election — presumeably so that such a bill would have more of a guarantee to pass again in the future.
Another point of view is that the more Republicans had in the Senate and Congress, the less boos from Democrats you’ll get if you’re more popular with the former over the latter.