Clive Palmer has played down talk of Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party senator-elect Ricky Muir joining his party.
The Palmer United Party (PUP) is expected to have three senators from July 1 next year and has entered into an alliance with Mr Muir to form a voting bloc.
Now there's speculation the motoring party may expel Mr Muir next week.
The party is in disarray after the Queensland arm sacked the Victorian branch.
Mr Palmer says he's given no thought to inviting Mr Muir to join his ranks.
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"We haven't thought about that, it's just a press beat-up," he told Network Ten on Sunday.
He said Mr Muir was a "hard negotiator".
"He badgered our senators ... to support the motorists' policies. There wasn't much I could do about it. He convinced them," Mr Palmer said.
Asked what Mr Muir gets out of the deal with PUP, such as private jet travel, Mr Palmer said "he doesn't get anything from me".
Last week, Mr Palmer tweeted his objections to the Australian Electoral Commission's recount of the West Australian Senate votes.
Greens Senator Scott Ludlam has won a recount after losing his WA seat by just 14 votes to PUP candidate Dio Wang.
"I guess Clive just thinks some recounts are more democratic than others," Senator Ludlam told Network Ten.
"He fought pretty hard to get Fairfax recounted on a very fine margin - that seemed reasonable to me."
The Fairfax recount continues this week, after Mr Palmer finished just seven votes ahead of the LNP's Ted O'Brien following a full redistribution of preferences.
Senator Ludlam attributed a loss of support for the Greens at the last election in part to the then-opposition's anti-carbon tax campaign.
"We've just had three years of people being saturated in the media and in the public debate with rhetoric and arguments designed to confuse the debate around global warming," he said.
