‘Unsettling’: Columnist sounds alarm as Elon Musk demands Democrat be booted from Congress

Elon Musk has demanded a Democratic congresswoman be kicked out of Congress because she dared question his motives during last week’s spending bill votes — and it’s set off alarm bells for a columnist.

MSNBC’s Steve Benen flagged the billionaire’s latest outburst as highly concerning.

He said Musk’s demand came after Connecticut Rep. Rosa DeLauro questioned his motives for getting involved in the government funding fight.

Specifically, she suggested Musk effectively killed a version of the spending bill by sending a tweet threatening that supporters would be primaried because it aimed to regulate U.S. investments in China.

After Musk killed it, it was rewritten — and the new version left that section out.

DeLauro wrote a letter to congressional leaders, “questioning whether the change to the bill reflected some kind of behind-the-scenes corruption: Perhaps, the Connecticut Democrat alleged, the legislation was tweaked specifically to benefit Musk, who has, as DeLauro put it, 'extensive” business interests in China,'" Benen wrote.

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And that left Musk furious. He jumped online, calling the congresswoman an “awful creature” and saying she “needs to be expelled from Congress!”

That threat left Benen highly alarmed.

“For the record, members of Congress are allowed to raise concerns about possible corruption, just as they’re able to make allegations regarding prominent public figures,” he wrote.

“Whether the congresswoman’s allegations have merit or not, to suggest that an elected lawmaker be kicked out of office for criticizing a billionaire in ways he doesn’t like is, to put it mildly, unsettling.”