The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, is betting on Donald Trump as the next president of the United States. Despite the Republican’s frequent disparagement of electric cars, Musk’s main source of wealth, the businessman has made a significant donation to a political action committee linked to the Republican candidate, Bloomberg has revealed.
The billionaire, whose net worth is estimated at about $264 billion, has made his contribution to a low-profile group called America PAC, according to Bloomberg, citing people familiar with the matter who requested anonymity. The organization is due to make public its list of donors on July 15.
The donation to Trump’s campaign is the latest step in the conservative drift of the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, who also owns the social network X, among other companies. Musk, who previously defined himself as a libertarian and presented himself as independent and apolitical, has recently shown his closeness to the Brazilian Jair Bolsonaro and the Argentine Javier Milei. He participated in an event that included the Italian Prime Minister, Giorgia Meloni, and the leader of Vox, Santiago Abascal, and in the 2022 US parliamentary elections he openly called for the vote for the Republican Party.
After buying Twitter, he not only re-admitted Trump to his social network, but also opened the doors wide to far-right hoaxes and conspiracy theories, which he himself has frequently spread. He attacks ideology with contempt woke (aware, progressive) and relentlessly attacks the President of the United States, Joe Biden, even if she has to resort to fake news.
Musk’s cash injection comes as Trump has outraised Biden with the help of corporate and Wall Street donors. The former president has been winning back the favor of numerous billionaires who turned their backs on him after the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021. Biden’s own fundraising has slowed after a disastrous debate that led prominent Democratic donors to cancel their donations. Several prominent donors have announced in recent weeks that they are withdrawing their support for the president. They include Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings; hotel magnate Stewart Bainum Jr; Abigail Disney, heiress to the Disney family fortune; philanthropist Gideon Stein and many others who are less well-known.
This Friday, The New York Times The paper reported that two sources say several prominent Democratic donors have told Future Forward — an organization the paper calls the largest pro-Biden political action committee — that some $90 million in contributions to the firm are on hold if Biden becomes president. The donations are from billionaires, many of which exceed $10 million, the paper said, without clarifying whether they include any that have already been publicly suspended, such as those from Reed Hastings, a regular contributor to the organization. An adviser to the committee told the New York paper that the group expects the flow of money to resume when the current uncertainty is over.
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Musk said earlier this year that he did not envision funding either the Trump or Biden campaigns, but appears to have changed his mind. Among outside organizations backing Trump, America PAC is the biggest spender on direct voter outreach. It has spent $15.8 million so far, with $13.1 million of that going to field operations, federal records reviewed by Bloomberg show. It has also paid for digital media, text messages and phone calls to reach voters. The group focuses on door-to-door persuasion and get-out-the-vote efforts. A recent FEC ruling allows super PACs to coordinate with campaigns to reach voters.
At Tesla’s last shareholder meeting, there was a question about the Republican presidential candidate. “I’ve had some conversations with him and he calls me for no reason. I don’t know why, but he does it,” he said. “He’s very nice when he calls,” he added, adding that the former president is a big fan of the Cybertruck, Tesla’s most futuristic model. “Many of his friends now have Teslas, they all love them, and he’s a big fan of the Cybertruck,” he said, saying that these are “factors that contribute” to his changing his mind about electric cars.
The former president and candidate for the presidential elections on November 5 is considering having the South African-born tycoon on his team if he returns to the White House, he revealed in May. The Wall Street Journal, which indicated that both had discussed the possibility of him playing an advisory role in a hypothetical second presidency.
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