How Elon Musk spent 2024 getting richer and more powerful than ever

Musk ended 2023 under siege. In what he later called his "dumbest" tweet ever, the billionaire promoted an antisemitic post. Media Matters, a liberal nonprofit, accused X of placing ads next to pro-Nazi content, allegations that sent advertisers fleeing the platform.

He apologized for the post but lashed out at advertisers, including Disney CEO Bob Iger, telling them "to go fuck" themselves.

In late January, Musk accepted an invitation to visit the site of the infamous Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp. Afterward, he said he had been "naive" about the Holocaust.

Musk had a prime seat to watch the Kansas City Chiefs win their second-straight Super Bowl.

This was Musk's first big game since reports surfaced that he spent the 2023 Super Bowl frustrated that President Joe Biden's tweet received more engagement than his own. According to Platformer, Musk pressured Twitter engineers to begin working on ensuring that his future posts would get much larger exposure.

Musk's X has become a new home for many commentators, including conservative commentator Tucker Carlson.

Former CNN anchor Don Lemon inked a deal with the platform for similar support, but those plans were scrapped after Lemon's interview with Musk.

Lemon, who later sued Musk, questioned the CEO's commitment to welcoming "diverse voices" on X in the wake of the abrupt cancellation.

"His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas can be shared seems not to include questions of him from people like me," Lemon wrote in a since-deleted post.

Musk sent Tesla shares higher in April amid a previously unannounced visit to China. According to Reuters, the Tesla CEO was there to soothe tensions over the automaker's Full Self-Driving (FSD) software, which has long been hoped to launch in its second-biggest market.

The entry of Tesla's technology into China continues to be delayed.

Musk's ties to China are receiving renewed attention given the powerful post he will occupy outside the Trump administration. Multiple House Democrats accused Musk of helping kill an initial bipartisan year-end spending bill due to including a provision that would regulate US investments in China. Congress eventually averted a government shutdown, but the final legislation did not include the investment restrictions.

"This awful creature needs to be expelled from Congress! Ugh …," Musk wrote on X, in response to Rep. Rosa DeLauro, a Connecticut Democrat, calling him out for tanking the deal.

SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service exploded in popularity over the year.

In May, Musk headed to the resort island of Bali to welcome Indonesia to Starlink, making it the third Southeast Asian country to receive the service.

Even bigger announcements came later in the year. In September, United Airlines announced it would launch Starlink service early next year. Several major cruise ship companies now offer Starlink as well.

Global internet traffic from Starlink more than tripled in 2024, as Business Insider previously reported.

Musk came off the sidelines in a major way by endorsing Trump after the former president survived an assassination attempt. Like others in Silicon Valley, the billionaire later said admired Trump's courage.

With blood across his face, Trump held up his fist and yelled "Fight" as Secret Service agents ushered him off the stage to safety.

It wasn't fully clear at the time, but Musk had already been working to support Trump. Just a day before shots rang out, Bloomberg News reported that the Tesla CEO had donated to a pro-Trump super PAC.

Musk soon became one of the biggest megadonors of the entire 2024 cycle. He wasn't done trying to influence the presidential race.

In October, Musk joined Trump as the former president returned to Butler, Pennsylvania, at the exact location of the July assassination attempt.

"As you can see, I am not just MAGA, I'm dark MAGA," Musk said while wearing an all-black Make American Great Again hat.

Trump's campaign seized on Musk's attire and used it to fuel further fundraising.

It wasn't all politics. In mid-October, Musk's SpaceX conducted its fifth test flight of its Starship rocket.

The company made history and pulled off an engineering marvel when it demonstrated its ability to catch a 233-foot-tall Super Heavy booster as it descended back toward the launchpad.

The spectacle moved Musk's vision for reusable rockets and, thus, cheaper space travel one step closer to reality.

Musk didn't stop at donating hundreds of millions to help Trump. He hit the campaign trail, focusing on Pennsylvania, widely viewed as the 2024 election's most important state.

The billionaire went even further in a controversial step, giving away $1 million to voters in swing states. The Trump ally's attorneys later admitted that the checks weren't the result of a true lottery.

Philadelphia's district attorney, Larry Krasner, filed a lawsuit in October attempting to stop the effort. Just before Election Day, a Pennsylvania judge ruled that the checks could go on.

Late on November 5, it became clear that Trump's political comeback would be successful. Musk was at Trump's private Mar-a-Lago club to watch the results unfold.

Trump thanked Musk by name in his victory speech early the next morning.

"We have a new star, a star is born," Trump told boisterous supporters in West Palm Beach, Florida, a few hours before the election was called in his favor. "Elon. He is an amazing guy."

Kai Trump, one of the president-elect's granddaughters, went even further, declaring Musk part of the family's "squad" in a photo that showed over a dozen Trumps next to Musk holding his son, X Æ A-12.

Musk and Trump remained virtually inseparable after the election. The billionaire maintained a constant presence at Mar-a-Lago.

When the president-elect left his club, Musk would often join him. On November 16, Musk joined Trump's sprawling entourage to watch UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden in New York.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick to lead the Health and Human Services Department, and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated to be director of national intelligence, were among those who sat nearby.

Musk wasted little time working on DOGE, the outside advisory panel that Musk and Ramaswamy have said will cut $2 trillion from the federal budget.

In December, Musk and Ramaswamy visited Capitol Hill to discuss their plans with GOP lawmakers. Musk even brought his son along.

Musk wasn't done disrupting Washington.

In mid-December, House lawmakers finally reached a deal to avoid a government shutdown just before the Christmas holiday. As was often the case, lawmakers loaded the legislation full of unrelated provisions, stretching the bill to over 1,500 pages long.

Trump's "First Buddy" soon joined a handful of conservative activists in fomenting an effort to kill the bill. Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican who helped break the deal with House Democrats, had to scrap it.

There was brief concern that Musk's actions might lead to a government shutdown, an occurrence he and Trump encouraged if the final deal didn't give them what they wanted.

Ultimately, Trump didn't get his wish for lawmakers to increase the debt ceiling. Musk declared he was satisfied with the final product, which trimmed the deal down which funded the federal government through March 14, included $100 billion in disaster relief, and extended farm policies for a year.

Democrats pounced on the opportunity to blame Musk for the funding bill's death. Some even called him President Musk.

Musk responded by lashing out at Democrats. He said on X the statements were a ploy designed to drive a wedge between him and Trump.

Trump addressed the fracas just before Christmas, joking to a conservative conference that he wasn't worried about the Tesla CEO who can't be president.

"No, he's not gonna be president, that I can tell you," Trump said. "And I'm safe, you know why? He can't be, he wasn't born in this country."