Elon Musk meets with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on Capitol Hill

WASHINGTON – Mr Elon Musk made a surprise visit to Capitol Hill on Thursday and met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy. 

“He came to wish me a happy birthday,” said Mr McCarthy, who turned 58 on Thursday. “We’ve been friends for years.”

Asked if he had discussed the debt ceiling with the billionaire Twitter and Tesla chief executive officer, Mr McCarthy responded “no”. He ignored other questions as he entered the House chamber to vote.

Mr Musk wasn’t immediately seen leaving Mr McCarthy’s office suite on the second floor of the Capitol.

On Twitter afterward, he said he had met with both the speaker and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries “to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties”. It was not clear where the encounter with Mr Jeffries took place.

Mr Musk is a longtime McCarthy donor and urged voters last year to vote Republican. He attended a conference with Mr McCarthy last year and recently tweeted his support for him to become Speaker.

Mr McCarthy has joked about not being able to afford test driving a Tesla. Most of the Tesla drivers in Congress, however, are Democrats. 

Mr Musk, who in 2020 announced that he had moved to Texas from California, has become more involved in politics over the past few years, and been critical of President Joe Biden and Democrats, claiming last year that the president was beholden to organised labour and that the party was damaging his businesses.

Mr Musk has also praised Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a possible Republican presidential candidate in 2024, and predicted that he could defeat Mr Biden, who rarely mentions Mr Musk or Tesla when he discusses electric vehicles and the automobile industry. BLOOMBERG