Elon Musk’s backing of Donald Trump’s decisive victory for a second presidency puts the billionaire entrepreneur in an extraordinary position of influence to help his companies secure favorable government treatment.
Musk contributed at least $119 million to a pro-Trump spending group, federal records show, part of a wider strategy to insulate his companies from regulation or enforcement and boost their government support, according to Reuters interviews with six Musk-company sources familiar with his political and business dealings and two government officials who have extensive interactions with Musk firms. Musk has business interests that depend heavily on government regulation, subsidies or policy, from Tesla’s electric cars to Neuralink’s brain chips to SpaceX’s rockets.
“Elon Musk sees all regulations as getting in the way of his businesses and innovation,” said one former top SpaceX official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “He sees the Trump administration as the vehicle for getting rid of as many regulations as he can, so he can do whatever he wants, as fast as he wants.”
Musk endorsed Trump on July 13, the day the candidate was shot in the ear in a Pennsylvania assassination attempt. Musk was a frequent speaker for Trump during the waning days of his campaign and spent election night with the president-elect at his Mar-a-Lago club in Florida. Trump has also promised to make Musk an “efficiency czar” in his administration.
Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, Musk and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Musk once fashioned his image primarily around fighting climate change by building electric cars to limit pollution and rockets that could one day help humans flee to Mars from a dying earth. He’s now at the forefront of a growing class of Silicon Valley billionaires championing a libertarian movement as a backlash to the California region’s historically liberal ideology
