As Speaker Johnson fights for his political life on Capitol Hill ahead of the government shutdown deadline on Friday, Senator Paul has decided to float another name to lead the chamber come January — billionaire Elon Musk, who is primarily responsible for killing Mr. Johnson’s original spending plan that would have kept the government open through March. 

Neither the Constitution nor the rules of the House require that the speaker be a member of the chamber. When Speaker McCarthy was removed from his position in October 2023, many Republican members said they would prefer to see President Trump take on the role. 

“The Speaker of the House need not be a member of Congress,” Mr. Paul wrote on X on Thursday. “Nothing would disrupt the swamp more than electing Elon Musk … think about it … nothing’s impossible.” The Kentucky senator also said the election of Mr. Musk would bring about a sense of “joy at seeing the collective establishment, aka ‘uniparty,’ lose their ever-lovin’ minds.”

Mr. Paul’s assertion that Mr. Musk would be a decent speaker for Republicans at this moment is just another layer of suffering that the GOP is shoveling onto Mr. Johnson. The speaker had expected to cruise into the Christmas holiday and the New Year, ready to start fresh with the inauguration of Trump. Only thanks to Mr. Musk himself, that dream — and possibly Mr. Johnson’s own tenure — is on the ropes. 

Shortly after Mr. Paul’s post, Congresswoman Taylor Greene responded favorably.

“I’d be open to supporting @elonmusk for Speaker of the House,” she wrote. “DOGE can only truly be accomplished by reigning in Congress to enact real government efficiency. The establishment needs to be shattered just like it was yesterday. This could be the way.”

On Wednesday morning, less than 12 hours after the bill text was released, Mr. Musk and his co-chairman of the government efficiency commission, Vivek Ramaswamy, started targeting members of Congress on X and demanding that citizens call their elected representatives. 

Congressman Andy Barr told Fox News that shortly after Mr. Musk began spouting off, the phones in his office began to ring. 

“The phone was ringing off the hook today. And you know why? Because they were reading the tweets, the X from Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, and they were telling me that they were, that they were listening to them,” Mr. Barr told Fox News’s Chad Pergram. “This shows the influence that president, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, and Vivek Ramaswamy have in this process before they’re even in office.”

Other lawmakers were less sure of Mr. Musk’s influence. Some told The New York Sun that the spending package was going to die whether the government efficiency chairmen spoke out against it or not. 

Congressman Ralph Norman of South Carolina simply said, “We’ll see” when asked on Wednesday what kind of influence Mr. Musk would have on Congress. He further told the Sun that support for Mr. Johnson’s legislation was “dwindling” before the world’s richest man even weighed in. 

Senator Tillis offered a similar assessment. Asked what kind of impact Mr. Musk had on the death of the spending package, the North Carolina senator responded, “For me? None.”

“It sounds like, to me, we’ve got House members that are not prepared to vote for the bill. I don’t think you can credit any one person,” Mr. Tillis told the Sun.