New York, Oct 29
Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, has emerged as both a surrogate for Donald Trump and a lightning rod for the Republican’s campaign.
The CEO of electric carmaker Tesla, and Space X, which has set its sight on human colonies on Mars, and with a controlling interest in the social media platform X that was once known as Twitter, as well as a slew of tech and science companies, Musk has been out campaigning for and with Donald Trump.
In an unlikely partnership, the global warming sceptic and the prolific maker of electric cars have taken a shine to each other and Trump waxes eloquent on the technological accomplishments of Musk, especially his rockets, making hand gestures to show how his Starship booster rocket safely landed.
But in many of his campaign speeches, Trump has ridiculed the performance of electric cars, which provided the liftoff to Musk’s other enterprises, because President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have ensured tax breaks for those buying it as a way of fighting climate change.
Trump has announced that he would be appointing the 53-year-old South Africa-born entrepreneur as the head of the Department of Government Efficiency, which he has proposed to reduce federal spending.
On Sunday at a campaign rally here, Musk said he would cut $2 trillion from the government’s $6.5 billion budget.
Democrats portray Musk as the stalking horse for billionaires' take over of government and eviscerating its social programmes while adopting policies that would hit the middle and poorer classes hard.
Musk, who bought Twitter for about $45 billion in 2022 and renamed it X, allowed Trump who had been banned from it back on and loosened restrictions on postings asserting that it was in the cause of free speech.
Many protested and threatened to leave X, but as one of the biggest megaphones for both political propaganda and misinformation, it continues to host President Joe Biden, and Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign, as well as many liberals and the Left.
Just as its ubiquity immunised X, Musk’s bet is that if Harris wins his government contracts would be difficult to unravel because they are deeply embedded in its programmes from space and defence to international aid and emergency preparedness. And, of course, in furthering its fight against climate change through e-vehicles and electricity storage systems.
Musk is donating $200 million to a political action committee, America PAC, that he has set up to help Trump’s victory, using a legal loophole that permits it as long as there is no direct link to candidate Trump.
The committee, which has attracted contributions from other businesspeople, is organisating house-to-house campaigns, promoting voter registration, and running advertising for Trump and against Harris.
A bundle of nervous energy who prances on stage like a kid, the eccentric entrepreneur has been campaigning for Trump in Pennsylvania, a state crucial for victory, holding rallies where politics mixes with far-out science and artificial intelligence.
One of his gimmicks is a lottery for voters in the seven swing states that could determine the election outcome, with a prize of $1 million drawn every day for those who sign a statement supporting the Constitution.
This may sound innocuous, but to the Democrats, it is insidious and illegal.
President Joe Biden called it “totally inappropriate”.
The Justice Department has warned him that it could be illegal and the Philadelphia prosecutor has sued to halt it, asserting that it was his duty to prevent “interference with the integrity of elections”.
Musk, who supports Trump’s campaign against illegal migrants, has been accused by Biden of being one himself because, the president alleged, Musk had started working while on a student visa.
That relates to his work founding a software company that got him $22 million when it was sold seeding his other ventures.
Although he did not pursue studies at Stanford which got him his student visa, Musk has said that he transitioned to an H-1B work visa by then.
A Wall Street Journal report that Musk has been in regular contact with Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has drawn condemnation, and the head of NASA said it should be investigated because of Musk companies contracts are with the government departments.
Musk’s Space X has a NASA contract under the Artemis programme to fly astronauts around the moon next year and land them in 2026.
California states’ Coastal Commission turned down a proposal by SpaceX to increase the number of rocket launches.
Musk is suing them asserting that it was motivated by politics.
Trump and Musk share the ideologies of laissez-faire capitalism and of reducing the scope of government (while also benefitting from it), but they also have some personal parallels -- they are both much married, three times each, although Musk divorced his third wife; they have been sued for sexual harassment, and they both are known for their vulgarity.
