Outgoing New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) brushed apart Elon Musk’s potential conflicts of curiosity whereas praising the tech baron’s campaign to get Washington’s fiscal home again so as.
Sununu downplayed fears that Musk’s profitable authorities contracts may affect his coverage recommendation to the incoming Trump administration and instructed that the world’s richest man is simply too rich to care about getting extra money.
“Everybody has a battle of curiosity at some degree,” Sununu instructed CNN’s “State of the Union” Sunday when pressed in regards to the billionaire’s monetary pursuits.
Moderator Dana Bash pushed again saying, “However that’s like a reasonably large one.”
“True, the man’s value $450 billion as of at present and this month,” Sununu admitted. “I don’t assume he’s doing it for the cash.”
“He’s doing it for the larger undertaking and the larger imaginative and prescient of America. He doesn’t want the {dollars}. He actually doesn’t,” Sununu added. “He’s so wealthy, he’s so faraway from the potential monetary affect of it.”
Sununu portrayed himself as a kindred spirit of kinds with Musk. Each males have a background in engineering, which the Granite State Republican studied on the Massachusetts Institute of Know-how.
Moreover, each males have espoused extra conventional fiscal conservative views in relation to authorities spending.
Sununu was additionally optimistic that Musk would have the ability to trim down authorities bloat through the nascent Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), which regardless of its title, isn’t really a authorities division.
“This can be a automotive crash, if you’ll, of economic crises coming,” Sununu cautioned. “[Interest on the debt] goes to about $1.8 trillion in 10 years as a result of our charges are so excessive now.”
“My huge argument right here is states have already discovered all these efficiencies that Washington’s speaking about. We’ve got already performed it.”
The New Hampshire governor, who toyed with a 2024 run himself, endorsed former presidential hopeful Nikki Haley and was outspokenly important of Trump in the course of the major course of.
Moreover Trump’s temperament, one among Sununu’s greatest gripes was authorities spending below the actual property mogul’s first time period. However this time round, Sununu is optimistic that issues will likely be totally different.
“I’m cautiously optimistic for a few causes. Primary, I don’t assume [Trump] understood how Congress actually essentially labored in 2017 and 2018,” Sununu defined.
“Republicans misplaced in 2018 as a result of they talked an enormous recreation and received nothing performed. I feel there’s a unique staff he’s surrounded himself with, a bit extra skilled of a staff throughout the White Home itself,” he added. “And he has outsiders.”
In Congress, Republicans are set to have a slimmer Home majority than they’d in the course of the begin of Trump’s first time period in 2017. Fiscal hawks throughout the social gathering have indicated a willingness to flex their muscle mass throughout key price range fights.
Earlier this month, for instance, Musk helped gasoline a revolt towards a bipartisan authorities funding invoice that Home Republican management negotiated with Democrats.
Sununu, who bucked strain to run for the US Senate in 2022, opted towards in search of reelection for a fourth consecutive time period as governor. He didn’t face time period limits.
He now plans on heading to the personal sector when Gov.-elect Kelly Ayotte (R) strikes into the governor’s mansion.
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