Claim: The speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives is not required to be a member of Congress. Rating: About this rating True Context The U.S. Constitution does not stipulate that the speaker of the House must be a member of the body, though traditionally a sitting member has always held that position.
In a Dec. 19, 2024 X post (archived), U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, a Republican from Kentucky, claimed the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives doesn’t need to be a member of Congress and floated the idea of putting billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, who has never held elected office, in the role.
As of this writing, Paul’s post has received more than 103,000 likes and 24,000 reposts. Paul’s idea was amplified (and critiqued) by many posts on X, such as this one (archived), this one (archived) and this one (archived). U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia, also voiced support for electing Musk as House speaker (archived).
It’s true that the U.S. Constitution does not require the speaker of the House to be a member of Congress and that Musk could theoretically hold that position. House members have voted for people outside of elected office to be speaker of the House before.
The Constitution simply says that
US Speaker of the House Doesn’t Have To Be a Member of Congress
