Kevin McCarthy cryptic after he’s spotted hosting Elon Musk for meeting

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House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was not forthcoming with details after he met with Twitter owner Elon Musk in Washington on Thursday.

Mr McCarthy told a gaggle of reporters at the Capitol on Thursday afternoon that he has been friends with the embattled technology entrepreneur for years and that Mr Musk had visited to “wish me a happy birthday.”

Mr Musk was in the Capitol to meet with both Mr McCarthy and Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries about the future of Twitter as the Republican-led House Oversight Committee prepares to hold a hearing into how the company handled a pre-2020 election story about Hunter Biden’s laptop.

“Just met with @SpeakerMcCarthy & @RepJeffries to discuss ensuring that this platform is fair to both parties,” Mr Musk tweeted following the conclusion of the meeting.

CNN reported on Thursday that the hearing on the company’s handling of the story about Mr Biden’s laptop — a controversial article about which by the New York Post it initially suppressed on the eve of the 2020 election before changing course — may take place on 8 February. Multiple Twitter employees have been invited to testify.

Mr McCarthy himself is just weeks into his tenure as Speaker after a gruelling battle to secure the nod from his caucus to replace Nancy Pelosi. Mr McCarthy ultimately won the job on the fifteenth ballot, persuading a number of holdouts from the far right Freedom Caucus to eventually support him.

Mr Musk has been dealing with his own challenges since being forced by a court order to buy Twitter late last year.

His handling of the company has enraged a number of its high-profile users and reportedly driven advertisers from the site, with Mr Musk making and then backing away from a number of changes to how the site functions and slashing the company’s workforce and office space.

Since buying the platform, Mr Musk has been fairly consistent about one thing: his support of the Republican Party. Mr Musk urged his Twitter followers to support Republicans in last year’s midterm elections, though it is not clear if he himself voted.

The meeting with Mr McCarthy and Mr Jeffries comes weeks after Mr Musk promised he would step back from the day-to-day operation of the social media site.