‘These awful people all need to be voted out’: Elon Musk launches attacks on Capitol Hill

Elon Musk is demanding that certain politicians be voted out of Capitol Hill, which is ironic considering no one ever voted him in.

Musk took to X to demand that over 150 Democrats be expelled from office after a vote on a bill surrounding deportation policies. “These awful people need to be voted out,” he wrote, “they sully the Capitol Building with their presence.”

Musk’s comments were attached to a post that he had shared from internet personality and online talk show host Mario Lawful, which made a misleading claim that 158 Democrats voted against a bill that would specifically deport sex offenders. The bill, called the “Violence Against Women by Illegal Aliens Act” was put forward by Republican Representative Nancy Mace. According to critics of the bill, the legislation will do little to actually protect victims of sexual violence, and could instead lead to the deportation of sexual assault survivors.

One of the Democrats naysayers Rep. Jerry Nadler called the legislation “purely a messaging bill,” whose inflammatory title represents nothing more than an effort to further enrage a right-wing political base that is already hostile towards migrants. Nadler stresses that the bill, which stipulates that any non-citizen found guilty of a sex offense will barred from entry or deported from U.S. soil., won’t actually change any policies, as those crimes are already grounds for deportation. “All of the conduct described here already constitutes a deportable offense,” said Nadler. ““It would be almost entirely redundant to current law.”

Nadler went on to say that the bill, which was opposed by nearly 180 groups as part of the National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, could end up harming sexual assault victims as well. The bill uses imprecise language to define domestic violence, and that nebulous language could be used to deport survivors who resorted to self-defense in order to fend off assault. Despite the pushback from Nadler and his Democratic colleagues, the bill passed in the House – supported by 51 Democrats and all Republican members who were present.

Elon Musk’s post lambasting Democrats for their stance on the bill is another shot fired in a larger culture war surrounding immigration and deportation – one that Musk has at times waged on his Republican colleagues themselves. Musk and his DOGE co-chair Vivek Ramaswamy recently came under fire for their unbridled support for H-1B visas, which grant companies the right to employ immigrants for specialized work for a limited amount of time. The visas are heavily relied upon by the tech sector in order to court talented international engineers, which Ramaswamy believes is a necessity due to his stance that the American workforce venerates “mediocrity over excellence” and lacks employable skills in competitive tech market.

Both Musk’s wealth and his political influence have grown considerably in recent months, one hand washes the other. Musk donated over a quarter billion dollars to Donald Trump and other Republican allies while on the campaign trail, and since winning the election he has been rewarded with a Trump Cabinet position and few hundred billion dollars more.

Musk’s role as Trump’s “first buddy” is far from ceremonial. The billionaire was able to use his newfound proximity to Trump in order to effectively kill a painstakingly negotiated bipartisan bill set to avert a government shutdown before the 2024 holiday season – all with a few (hundred) tweets. If Musk’s most recent criticism of Democrats is be considered, it’s likely that he’ll continue to launch political attacks from behind the keyboard. After all, it’s worked before.