A new report details how Elon Musk went from supporting Biden in 2020 to endorsing Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. The Washington Post reports that the world’s wealthiest man “began privately gathering support for Donald Trump’s second presidency long before” his July 13 endorsement.
An apparent initial inflection point in Musk’s drift away from Biden was the president’s decision not to invite Musk’s Tesla to a 2021 electric vehicle summit. The nonunion automaker Tesla was reportedly snubbed in part because the United Auto Workers union was attending the summit and Biden “wanted to burnish his pro-labor reputation.” At the time, the anti-labor billionaire he is, Musk accused Biden of being “controlled by the unions”—a charge he recently repeated on X.
Since then, Musk has become vocally pro-Trump. One month ago, Musk reportedly advocated for Trump at a Palm Beach congregation of billionaires and political strategists, largely based on anti-immigration sentiment. He expressed that “President Biden would allow millions of additional undocumented immigrants to cross America’s southern border,” creating “a demographic shift that could doom the Republican Party in future elections,” while Trump “would stop the crossings.”
This is consistent with Musk’s history of immigration alarmism. In The New Republic in March, Greg Sargent described how Musk espouses a version of the “great replacement theory” that claims “immigrants are being imported to replace native-born voters.”
The Washington Post report also detailed how Musk’s business interests have influenced his political shift. While under Biden, Musk’s businesses have faced investigations and recalls, sources told the Post that “Trump could ease Tesla’s regulatory path to delivering a fully autonomous personal vehicle … and dial back federal scrutiny of Tesla and X, as well as a National Labor Relations Board investigation into allegations of harassment at SpaceX.”
At the Palm Beach meeting, Musk reportedly acknowledged that the attendees may be hesitant to throw their support behind Trump—some of them “shook their heads and winced” at his pro-Trump statements—so he suggested “giving to an outside group instead.” In May, Musk helped found a super PAC to support Trump’s election bid. He has expressed his intention to donate to the PAC, which has raked in millions from tech giants and others in his circle.
