Can Elon Musk ever run for president of the United States?

Donald Trump has wasted no time in assembling his administration for his second term in the White House after his historic US election victory last week.

Among the confirmed picks is Elon Musk, controversial tech mogul and businessman who played a key role in Mr Trump’s presidential campaign.

He has been appointed co-head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) alongside Vivek Ramaswamy. According to Mr Trump, the non-departmental advisory group will “pave the way for my administration to dismantle government bureaucracy, slash excess regulations, cut wasteful expenditures, and restructure federal agencies”.

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Mr Musk gave over $132m to the Trump campaign and other Republicans in the run-up to the US election. The South African-born billionaire, who owns both Twitter/X and Tesla, also became a regular at Trump rallies.

But his path to Trump’s side wasn’t entirely smooth. In 2014, Mr Musk described himself as “half Democrat, half Republican,” and revealed in 2022 that he had consistently voted Democrat in the past.

Mr Musk had even come to blows with Mr Trump in the past over this, as the president-elect publicly claimed that the billionaire had lied to him about how he had voted.

Now, it would appear that the pair are close friends. Mr Musk has been spotted spending a lot of time with Mr Trump following the US election, and has recently made the bold commitment to shave $2tn from US government spending (which was $6.75tn in total in 2023).

And his newfound success in politics has also led to speculation that he may seek the top job himself one day.

Could Elon Musk run for president?

It’s very unlikely. The US Constitution makes clear that only ‘natural born’ US citizens can serve as president – and Mr Musk was born in South Africa. This should automatically disqualify the eccentric tech mogul from becoming president.

But the Republican party has put forward a candidate who was not born on US soil before. In 2008, John McCain was able to run against Barack Obama despite being born in Panama and not becoming a US citizen until he was 11 months old.

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This caused some controversy at the time, with some critics saying it should rule out Mr McCain as a candidate.

However, a legal review found that the politician could be considered ‘natural-born’ due to two factors. Firstly, both of his parents were US citizens. Secondly, the military base where he was born was in the Panama Canal Zone, which was under US control at the time.

With a South African father and Canadian mother, Mr Musk would likely face more difficulty explaining why he should be allowed to run.