Elon Musk endorses Republican Rick Scott as US Senate majority leader By Reuters
By Moira Warburton and Leah Douglas
(Reuters) – Businessman Elon Musk, a friend of President-elect Donald Trump, endorsed Republican Senator Rick Scott as the US Senate majority leader on Sunday as the race to fill the powerful position intensified after the party won the chamber.
Republicans are expected to hold at least 52 seats in the 100-member Senate after taking three held by Democrats in West Virginia, Ohio and Montana in last Tuesday’s election. The current leader of the Senate Republican Mitch McConnell, who has led his party in this group since 2007, said that he will step down from the leadership after the election.
“Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader!” Musk, the tech billionaire who has emerged as Trump’s biggest supporter in recent months, wrote on social media on Sunday.
Musk is the richest person in the world. Scott, who represents Florida in the Senate, is a former health care executive and the richest congressman. Musk endorsed Trump on July 13, the day the former president was shot in the ear in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania.
In an interview with Fox News on Sunday, Scott said the Senate needs to make real change.
“We can’t keep doing what we’re doing,” Scott said. “That’s what Donald Trump was elected to do, change.”
Trump campaigned on promises, among other things, to deport illegal immigrants in the United States, cut taxes, impose tariffs on international trading partners and loosen monetary policy.
Scott has the support of several hard-right Republican senators, but it remains to be seen whether he can bring Republican allies to his side.
Each party votes for its Senate leader in January, after senators are sworn in to the new Congress. Whoever wins the Republican leadership will succeed Democrat Chuck Schumer as majority leader.
The results of two Senate races – Pennsylvania and Arizona – have not been called by Edison Research. Republican Sen. David McCormick (NYSE: ) of Pennsylvania told Fox News on Sunday that he’s not ready to endorse a candidate yet, but said Republicans “can’t have growth” in their plans.
HOUSING CONTROL IS UNCLEAR
Control of the US House of Representatives has not yet been decided. Republicans have already won 213 seats, according to Edison, just shy of the 218 needed to retain their current majority. If Republicans lead both chambers, it would mean that most of Trump’s agenda would have a greater chance of winning congressional approval than if Democrats controlled one of them.
Partial results show that Republicans have a slight lead in nine of the House races and Democrats in seven, according to the report. New York Times (NYSE:) analysis, although many thousands of votes have yet to be counted.
Control of the House would give Republicans broad powers to advance a plan for tax cuts, border security controls and energy deregulation.
Most of the remaining House seats are in the Western states, where vote counting often takes longer than elsewhere in the country.
