Elon Musk He wants to colonize Mars, build self-driving cars, and implant brain chips in humans to give them telekinetic capabilities. None of those promises are as risky as his commitment to Donald Trumpthe candidate for president of USA who once belittled him by defining him as a “master of saying bullshit.” That was in 2022, when they hated each other. Maybe they will continue to do it, but now they need each other. The Republican leader is risking his last chance to return to the White House in the elections on November 5 and Musk is a powerful speaker who doesn’t mind burning money to boost his campaign. The richest man in the world, on the other hand, is eager to gain political influence in Washington to reduce taxes on their companies and sees a Trump presidency as their best ally. like himself he confessed between laughs“if Trump loses, I’m screwed.”
On July 13, Musk took advantage of the failed attempt to murder against Trump to announce to the world that he supported his candidacy. It didn’t surprise anyone. After taking control of Twitter and rename it X, the technology magnate has used the red social like a battering ram to attack the democratscriminalize immigrationcensoring information critical of the former president and ridiculing progressive causes, amplifying all kinds of hoaxes among his more than 200 million followers and even wondering why no one has yet tried to kill Joe Biden oa Kamala Harris. In early October, the alliance crystallized at a rally in which a visibly excited Musk jumped around the stage while predicting that a Democratic victory would mean the end of the democracy in USA.
In recent months, the controversial businessman has given himself completely to the Trump cause, showering his campaign with $75 million. That money is helping to mobilize the electorate in crucial states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona o Nevada. The billionaire is also resorting to tactics that could be crimelike raffling off a million dollars among those who support Trump or financing a propaganda operation—uncovered by OpenSecrets— who poses as a Democrat to spread falsehoods such as that Harris will guarantee undocumented immigrants access to national health services.
“Musk is trying to buy a position in Trump’s cabinet,” explains Jaime Caro, doctor in Contemporary History from the Autonomous University of Madrid and Columbia University in statements to EL PERIÓDICO. “Since companies can participate in elections“The United States has become a caciquil oligarchy.”
More cuts, less taxes
Musk has tied his fortune and reputation to Trump, a political involvement “unparalleled in modern history,” according to The New York Times. But why do you want him to win? The technology magnate attributes his fervent support to the need to “reduce the size of the Government” and end an “excess of regulation“which, he assures, “strangles” his companies and “erodes freedoms.”
Musk denies the Government, but his wealth It depends on him. Its two main companies, Tesla y SpaceXhave hundreds of current contracts with the public administration, which in the last decade has showered them with some 15.4 billion dollars from taxpayers. The outsourcing of crucial departments such as NASA or Defense has given it enormous political influence. “Tesla and SpaceX have grown under the auspices of the Democrats (…) and if they lose the elections they will pay dearly,” explains Caro.
However, their companies are also burdened by at least 20 recent investigations for possible illegalities ranging from the lack of safety of their autonomous cars to the contamination of their rockets, according to data collected by the New York newspaper. “Musk wants to avoid jail and billions in fines,” said professor and lawyer Seth Abramson, author of four books on the Trump scandals.
“Catastrophic” conflict of interest
The maneuver could work. In 2022, Trump humiliated him when he explained that he had gone to the White House to ask for help for his companies and that, if he wanted to, he could have made him “get on his knees and beg.” However, now he has promised to be the new “secretary of cost reduction” of a Trumpist government, a high position with which he could fire thousands of officials – as he already did on Twitter, without much success – but also suggest changes. in federal regulations that benefit your pocket. “He’s dying to do it,” Trump said.
If fulfilled, Musk would have the power to regulate the regulators who monitor their companies, which according to Walter Shaub, former director of the Office of Government Ethics of USArepresents a “catastrophic” conflict of interest. The tycoon promised this Wednesday that he will approve autonomous vehicles at the federal level. Besides, point Rolling Stonethat position would allow him to obtain “one of the largest tax breaks in the history of the country,” valued at tens of billions of dollars.
Spite and radicalization
The symbiosis between Musk and Trump is born of spite. In 2019, Musk voted for Biden as he had previously done with Barack Obama y Hillary Clinton. After all, Democrats were the most favorable to Tesla’s electric cars and SpaceX’s reusable rockets. However, his relationship with the still president began to go wrong with the covid, when the Government forced the employees of his companies to be vaccinated. The support of the Administration to the unions He also disliked Musk, who hates them, but what hurt the wound was that Biden did not invite him to a meeting of the manufacturers of electric vehicles in the White House, an exclusion that definitively separated him from the Democrats, according to The Wall Street Journal.
In recent years, Musk has reached out to leaders of extreme right as Javier Miley, Giorgia Meloni o Benjamin Netanyahu to promote your business interests. However, her alliance with Trump also goes beyond these calculations and responds to a process of personal radicalization that accelerated when, in 2022, her transgender daughter changed her first and last name to stop being related to an absent father who described as “cruel” and “narcissistic.” Musk has said that his “son” died “killed by the virus woke“His visceral rejection of the trans movement made him approach the alt-right American by the hand of Ron DeSantisthen called to be the new Republican star. When the Trumpist wave extinguished it, it also dragged Musk down with it. What if Trump loses?
