It’s not an overstatement to say that Elon Musk, the billionaire proprietor of X and CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is former President Donald Trump’s greatest fanboy — and patron — within the 2024 election.
He’s actually, and comically, leaping at Trump’s facet at rallies. He’s tweeting (together with, often, canine whistles and misinformation). And to the dismay of some, he has let Trump tweet, too.
Within the spring, Musk launched a political motion committee, merely referred to as America, lined up different high-profile wealthy guys from his Rolodex, after which threw a further $75 million of his personal cash into the pot. In keeping with filings with the Federal Election Fee, America PAC has spent greater than $100 million on getting Trump re-elected, sending a whole bunch of canvassers out to speak to voters one-on-one in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
And naturally, this week, Musk pledged to provide away 1,000,000 {dollars} a day till the election to registered swing-state voters who signed his PAC’s petition, solely to reportedly obtain a letter from the Division of Justice warning that the competition might be in violation of federal voting regulation.
This story was first featured within the Right this moment, Defined publication
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As Musk’s politics transfer ever rightward — or not less than, as Vox’s Zack Beauchamp writes, towards “a selected kind of edgelord bigotry that drifts often into debunked conspiracy theories” — it’s price asking what he desires to get out of the entire deal. An appointment to some unnamed new “authorities effectivity” fee? Untold energy over the businesses that search to manage his firms? Or, improbably, a tax break?
What does loyalty to Trump web him — or anybody else courting the previous president’s favor — in the long run?
I spoke with Vox senior reporter Whizy Kim, who has been reporting on Musk, his followers, lawsuits, and even his textual content messages because the months resulting in his 2022 buy of Twitter, to attempt to perceive the place Elon Musk the person, the media mogul, and the politically formidable demagogue intersect. What does Musk actually need? And if he will get it, what is going to it imply for the remainder of us? (Our dialog has been condensed for size and evenly edited.)
Lavanya Ramanathan: Once you look again on the second Elon Musk purchased Twitter, and now think about it within the present context of how he’s now attempting to take a position closely in politics, do you see parallels there?
Whizy Kim: I don’t assume it’s in any respect an accident that Elon Musk determined to purchase Twitter, after which slowly grew to become extra politically vocal. He has an enormous megaphone now. He’s the proprietor of a web site that lots of people nonetheless use, particularly for stuff that’s associated to the information. So I do assume that there’s a direct connection between him first speaking about how Twitter must be this public “city sq.” the place everybody can have their beliefs heard, the place free speech is revered, to at this time, the place he has reinstated a whole lot of banned accounts, together with Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene, and different incendiary figures. There’s additionally far more right-wing content material that you just see on the positioning should you go to X at this time in contrast to some years in the past.
There’s been an enormous transformation in the best way People understand Elon Musk since then. Apart from the truth that the worth of Twitter has tanked and the variety of customers has declined, you’ve written about his fanboys, the folks that basically seemed up him — predominantly younger males. Is he nonetheless actually influential with this set?
Up to now, he was positively seen as extra of a liberal hero. Not that he was at all times supporting Democratic candidates and politicians, however he was a man who had popularized electrical automobiles. After I talked to his former followers for a chunk, a whole lot of them talked about how they had been drawn to his ardour for local weather change and the surroundings. He cared about the way forward for humanity. And so they noticed him as very very like a mythic heroic determine, sort of a Tony Stark. They admired how a lot he gave the impression to be in service of civilization, not simply with Tesla, however even with SpaceX, and desirous to additional humanity’s mission past Earth.
After which the extra he talked on Twitter, particularly about his political beliefs, they realized he might be very unstable. He may actually lash out at anybody who criticized him. A number of folks advised me that doesn’t appear befitting of a CEO of a number of main firms, performing childishly and immaturely in response to somebody possibly making a great level.
I hear a whole lot of similarities between him and Donald Trump there. What do these two males have in frequent?
Character-wise, and simply by way of their worldview, what I actually observed from the X dialog that they’d in August was that they each come from a spot of feeling personally aggrieved. Trump at many factors talked about how his opponents had engaged unfairly in opposition to him, all of those prison court docket instances in opposition to him, these trials, as a result of they don’t need him to win the election. They’ve each often been critics of the media. Elon Musk has additionally talked about how legacy media is absolutely biased and doesn’t platform the reality. They might kind of take a look at one another and say, “Yeah, you get me. We’ve each been unfairly attacked.”
And what’s their finish sport right here? What does Elon Musk stand to realize from an affiliation with Trump, and now a monetary stake in Trump’s victory?
Beneath the Biden administration, Elon Musk felt that a whole lot of these regulatory businesses are staffed with people who find themselves retaining an in depth eye over company misbehavior. His firms have been investigated or fined by completely different authorities businesses, whether or not it’s the Labor Board, OSHA, the SEC, or the Division of Transportation, and Elon Musk sees this as unfair. Even when he acknowledges that his firms didn’t observe security rules, he’ll be like, nicely, these security measures are silly, anyway. I feel I do know finest. I run my firm. I’m an professional in these fields. The federal government is simply clunky and slowing us down.
One of many issues that he proposed throughout the Trump interview was some kind of authorities effectivity fee. And Trump was sort of like, oh, yeah, that’s a good suggestion … and possibly you’ll be able to assist run it. Basically, that sort of fee would slash the budgets of a whole lot of regulatory businesses.
Trump and Musk are kind of framing that as making a authorities that’s extra smart and environment friendly concerning the finances, however actually, it may additionally doubtlessly function a strategy to flush the budgets of businesses which were coming after his firms. If he has Trump’s ear, , he may say, “Properly, possibly if you wish to appoint a brand new particular person to the Labor Board, it must be somebody extra pleasant to companies, quite than to staff.” That’s a possible sort of alliance that they may kind.
We all know that billionaires, that Silicon Valley, are oftentimes extra secretive about their involvement in politics. What Elon Musk has been doing is absolutely shining a lightweight on large enterprise billionaire donors and the best way they function within the political sphere, so it’s simpler to see. The place does this finish for Musk, if Trump wins, or if Trump doesn’t win?
I do assume that he’ll proceed to be extra politically vocal, as a result of he’s opened up a can of worms. It’s tougher to return when there’s an extended file of him popping out for a Trump crowd, formally endorsing him, and all of that.
Elon Musk is the evolution of what began from Peter Thiel. When Thiel first got here out as this mega-conservative donor, folks had been like, wow, he’s so open and vocal in a world that tends to be extra liberal. Now, we have now Elon Musk, we have now David Sacks, all these different Silicon Valley figures who’re attempting to elect Trump.
However clearly, one of many the reason why these rich, influential figures attempt to keep quiet is as a result of they need to play either side, proper? Elon Musk has come out so vociferously as pro-Trump and criticizing Biden and criticizing Kamala Harris. If Kamala Harris wins, is there room for Elon to come back again and say, “Hey, let’s nonetheless work collectively in some capability?” That’s going to be a a lot tougher street.
