Trump hadn’t “ceded the presidency” to the tech billionaire Elon Musk

President elect Donald Trump told conservative activists that he hadn’t “ceded the presidency” to the tech billionaire Elon Musk. Trump dismissed any suggestion that he’s being usurped by his high-profile billionaire ally Elon Musk, following the week in Congress when Musk helped derail an emergency spending measure to avert a government shutdown.
Trump said the notion that he has “ceded the presidency” to Musk is a fiction and that even if Musk wanted the job, he could not get it because of the Constitution’s requirement that the U.S. president be a natural-born citizen. Musk was born in South Africa.
“No, he’s not going to be president, that I can tell you,” Trump said. “And I am safe. You know why he cannot be? He was not born in this country.”
Trump spoke for more than an hour on Sunday at Turning Point USA’s America Fest conference in Phoenix, Arizona, with thousands of conservative activists cheering wildly as he took the stage amid a pyrotechnic display. It was his first rally-style event since the election.

Smoke curled around the lectern and sparklers shot up from the floor as the crowd stood and cheered the incoming president, who wore his trademark suit and overlong red tie, NBC news reported.
“Trump! Trump! Trump!” the audience chanted. Following which Trump said: “The golden age of America is upon us.” In his remarks, Trump also said that Russian President Vladimir Putin wants to meet with him “as soon as possible” and called for an end to the “horrible” war between Russia and Ukraine.
He had described the war in Ukraine as worse than the holocaust of WorldWar2 how a beautiful country with flatlands, saw beautiful buildings with people fall . He had said at a Mar a Lago press conference in Florida that if he had been president, the Russians would not have moved into Ukraine.

At a meeting in Notre Dame in France for the relaunch ceremony after renovation and reconstructions of the famed church, , Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Trump and seemed to indicate that he wanted to end the war with Russia. The question is how and when?
Trump had stated on his campaign trail that he would bring a swift end to the war, using leverage and influence he believes he has attained with both Putin and Ukraine’s leader, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Referring to a different foreign policy issue, Trump reiterated a warning he made on social media Saturday that Panama is charging excessive fees for use of the Panama Canal, the passageway between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. If Panama does not relent, Trump said he would insist on retaking control of the canal, which the U.S. relinquished under a treaty that then-President Jimmy Carter signed in 1977.
“We’re being ripped off at the Panama Canal like we’re being ripped off everywhere else,” Trump said. The president of Panama, José Raúl Mulino, posted on social media Sunday that the canal belongs to Panama and the sovereignty of the country is not up for negotiation.
“Every square meter of the Panama Canal and the surrounding area belongs to Panama, and will continue to,” he said in his video message. “The sovereignty and independence of our country are non-negotiable. It’s part of our history of struggle and an irreversible victory.”

Trump spoke of a blitzkrieg type ad campaign to end drug abuse. We are going to advertise how bad drugs are for you,” Trump said. “They ruin your look, they ruin your face, they ruin your skin. They ruin your teeth. If you want to have horrible teeth, take a lot of fentanyl.”

Trump’s appearance at the conference after a tension packed week and a tense standoff in Washington, D.C., that nearly caused the government to close. If it had happened, hundreds of govt agency workers would have been furloughed, that is working without pay.
Trump and Musk effectively sabotaged Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson’s proposed emergency spending measure, forcing lawmakers to scramble for an bipartisan alternative that could keep the government running, hours before the shutdown would become effective.
Musk used the social media site X he owns for posting over a 100 times on his objections to the original spending deal — a trailer on how he wields his influence to shape policy in Trump’s second term. Democrats mocked MUSK calling him “President Musk.” History shows that anyone who upstages Trump or diverts attention from him does not last long in his orbit.
Yet Trump’s remarks suggest that he does not want a rift with Musk; for now, the two have shared interests. Musk spent more than $250 million to help get Trump elected.
Media analysts say that Musk spent a quarter billion of his asset value to fund the Trump campaign gambling thus to reap benefits on the hump of a Trump victory. The analysts also claimed that from the period campaign for presidency started and his funding of his was launched till the election Victory of Trump at the hustings in the 2024 elections, Musk had made a fast buck riding on Trump’s popularity minting his riches to over $400 billion from $260 billion or so.

He is the most powerful billionaire in the US wielding enormous power with governments owning a highly popular social media platform X(Twitter), SpaceX , a company outside of NASA that does space research and launched rockets and satellites, TESLA, the largest selling Electronic Vehicle in the country. He also once owned PayPal, a payment platform on the internet.
Trump had also spoken at a meeting or written in social media that, he could find a way to keep him in the White House beyond 2028 when his presidency ends , though he can never run for another term as the presidential term is limited to eight years, consecutive or non-consecutive terms.
Source: NBC network.