When Donald Trump declared his “magnificent victory” because the outcomes of america presidential election trickled in, he reserved particular reward for one man who has helped to catapult him again into the nation’s high job.
“A star is born, Elon,” he mentioned in a speech in West Palm Seaside, Florida, referring to his best ally within the race to develop into president: the billionaire proprietor of Tesla, SpaceX and X (previously Twitter), Elon Musk.
Musk has certainly performed an outsized position in Trump’s comeback, not solely pumping tens of millions of {dollars} into Trump’s marketing campaign but additionally serving as a coverage advisor and promoter, successfully turning his X social media platform right into a Make America Nice Once more (MAGA) mouthpiece.
“The long run is gonna be improbable,” Musk posted on X because it turned obvious that Trump could be returning to the White Home.
The long run is gonna be improbable pic.twitter.com/I46tFsHxs3
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 6, 2024
The billionaire’s star might certainly rise excessive underneath Trump, who beforehand prompt his ally might develop into “secretary of cost-cutting” in his cupboard. Specialists have warned that Musk, whose House X already wields clout as a serious authorities defence contractor, might find yourself “regulating the regulators”.
Because the mud settles, right here’s every thing it’s essential to learn about how the world’s richest man helped engineer one of many wildest political comebacks in historical past. How did Musk leverage his cash and affect to get Trump again on high, and why?
How a lot did Musk donate to Trump’s marketing campaign?
To be clear, billionaires performed a much bigger position than ever in each the Democratic and Republican presidential campaigns. Invoice Gates of Microsoft and former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg each backed Vice President Kamala Harris. But it surely was Musk’s multi-faceted help of Trump that actually made the distinction.
Musk donated an estimated $132m to Trump and different Republicans within the run-up to the 2024 election, in accordance with the Federal Election Fee (FEC) final month in its closing disclosures earlier than election day.
Two of the largest donations – $43.6m and $75m – went straight into the Trump marketing campaign machine, notably the America PAC (political motion committee) established by Musk himself.
Controversially, Musk launched a money giveaway in key swing states, providing registered voters who agreed to signal a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments of the US Structure, which respectively defend freedom of speech and the proper to maintain and bear arms, the possibility to win $1m a day.
“We’re going to be awarding $1m randomly to individuals who have signed the petition, on daily basis, from now till the election,” Musk mentioned at a marketing campaign occasion on October 19.
The transfer was challenged in a Pennsylvania courtroom after the US Justice Division warned the group might be breaking election legal guidelines, which forbid paying folks to register to vote. Nonetheless, judges dominated on Monday that the operation might go forward after Musk’s attorneys argued that the winners have been vetted spokespeople and never randomly chosen.
Now Musk is being sued in a category motion swimsuit by voters who declare he satisfied them to signal the petition underneath false pretences that they’d an opportunity of successful the $1m. The swimsuit was filed on Tuesday by Arizona resident Jacqueline McAferty, who additionally accused Musk of utilizing the giveaway to gather priceless private information and drive visitors to X.
FEC filings additionally confirmed Musk gave $10m to the Senate Management Fund, a PAC with a remit to “defend and develop the Republican Senate Majority”, probably serving to Republicans efficiently wrest again management of the Senate on this election.
Musk has allegedly made different unreported donations to Republicans as properly.
How was X deployed as a MAGA mouthpiece?
Unusual although it might now appear, Elon Musk was as soon as perceived as a liberal and a champion of renewable vitality who claimed to have voted for Democrat Joe Biden in 2020. This picture has modified since 2022, following his takeover of the social media platform Twitter, now rebranded as X.
After pledging to show Twitter right into a “politically impartial” discussion board, Musk laid off staff answerable for monitoring disinformation. He additionally restored greater than 62,000 suspended accounts, together with white nationalist and neo-Nazi accounts accused of spreading hate speech and conspiracy theories.
Crucially, he additionally reversed the ban on Trump’s account, which the platform shut down after the assault on the US Capitol in January 2021, which many declare Trump inspired.
By the point the election rolled round, critics mentioned X had successfully develop into an unofficial home platform for the MAGA wing of the Republican Get together. The proprietor himself was accused of “fanboying” Trump and spreading misinformation amongst his 200 million followers, his affect amplified by X’s algorithm.
One instance was the promotion of a doctored video of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, which carried a pretend voiceover saying: “I used to be chosen as a result of I’m the final word variety rent.” Musk reposted the video in July with the phrases, “that is wonderful” and a laughing emoji, garnering 136 million extra views for an merchandise which was not flagged as a parody.
Misinformation about “unlawful aliens” voting within the election circulated on X as properly. This, regardless of research from each conservative and left-leaning organisations displaying that the incidence of the offence, carrying penalties of as much as a yr in jail, a advantageous and potential deportation, was negligible.
A conspiracy idea that Democrats have been importing unlawful immigrants and granting them an amnesty to broaden their voter base in future elections was additionally allowed to flow into on X and amplified by Musk himself. “Dem. America would then develop into a one-party, deep blue socialist state,” he mentioned in a submit in October.
The Dems have imported large numbers of illegals to swing states. Triple digit will increase over the previous 4 years!
Their STATED plan is to offer them citizenship as quickly as potential, turning all swing states Dem.
America would then develop into a one-party, deep blue socialist state. https://t.co/zxVmmR0GqO
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 25, 2024
Following Trump’s televised debate towards Harris in September, wherein he repeated the false declare that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio city have been consuming cats and canines, Musk reposted a meme of a cat holding an indication saying “Kamala hates me” with a laughing emoji.
Regardless of his avowed dedication to free speech, Musk has suppressed some information tales, akin to an article by journalist Ken Klippenstein, which detailed Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance’s weak spots, reportedly obtained from leaked paperwork. Whereas the journalist’s account was later reinstated, hyperlinks to the article have been blocked.
A survey performed by the Pew Analysis Heart in March this yr confirmed the rising reputation of the platform amongst Republican supporters, displaying that 53 p.c thought it was “good for democracy”, roughly triple the 17 p.c who answered the identical manner in 2021.
Why has Musk allied himself with Trump?
A robust merger of their fanbases supercharged the alliance between Trump and Musk.
Not so way back, there was no love misplaced between the pair. In 2022, Trump referred to as Musk a “bulls**t artist” for allegedly mendacity about supporting him within the 2016 election. Musk responded on then-Twitter, saying it was “time for Trump to hold up his hat & sail into the sundown”.
Quick ahead two years and the tech tycoon was side-by-side with Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, carrying a black MAGA hat.
Musk’s lurch to the proper is usually attributed to the government-imposed closure of his Tesla crops in the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020, he reopened a manufacturing facility in Fremont, California, declaring that he was able to be arrested, taking a stand towards the “bureaucratic blob”.
His rightward shift has since develop into manifest in his relationships with anti-regulation leaders akin to Argentinian President Javier Milei. Musk has additionally develop into near worldwide right-wing leaders akin to Italy’s Giorgia Meloni, India’s Narendra Modi and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu.
Nonetheless, quite a lot of American media shops, akin to Vainness Truthful and the Washington Put up, have pointed to a deeper motivation, sparked by one among his youngsters’s resolution to come back out as transgender in 2022, reducing ties with Musk and altering their surname to Wilson. Claiming in an interview with Jordan Peterson that he had been “tricked” into signing off on their medical therapy, Musk introduced his campaign towards the “woke thoughts virus”.
In 2021, Musk shifted Tesla’s headquarters from Palo Alto, California, in Silicon Valley to Austin, Texas, equally altering his residence from California to Texas. In July this yr, Musk mentioned he would transfer SpaceX and X from California to Texas over a regulation that bans colleges from forcing academics to inform dad and mom when their youngster modifications their gender id.
How has Musk helped Trump attain younger males?
Observers say Musk and Trump, who each current themselves as rule-breaking, non-mainstream “alpha males”, seem to have tapped right into a widespread sense of male frustration in America, partly derived from the #MeToo motion and the feminist backlash towards “poisonous masculinity“, which has left some males saying they really feel stigmatised and marginalised.
Writing within the New York Instances final month, John Della Volpe, director of polling on the Harvard Kennedy Faculty Institute of Politics, referred to as Trump’s play for the younger male vote a “grasp class in bro whispering”. Angling for the “bro vote” seems to have paid off, with a current Harvard Youth Ballot revealing that 35 p.c of males between 18 and 24 years outdated who have been questioned voiced help for Trump, up 5 p.c from a 2020 survey.
It’s a sensibility that has discovered expression in so-called “bro” podcasts such because the Joe Rogan Expertise. Rogan endorsed Trump on Monday after interviewing Musk. “The nice and highly effective @elonmusk. If it wasn’t for him, we’d be f**ked. He makes what I believe is probably the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him each step of the best way,” mentioned Rogan on X.
The message clearly resonated.
Two days later, Trump was elected forty seventh president of america.
