Elon Musk’s politics have been hard to decipher over the last few years — he supports left-leaning causes like the environment through his EV company Tesla, and also speaks out against illegal immigration, which is a right-leaning talking point — but he’s finally come out and endorsed a candidate for the US Presidential Election due a few months from now.
Elon Musk endorsed Donald Trump right after he was shot at in an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania earlier today. “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” he posted on X, while simultaneously sharing a video which showed Trump being shot during a rally. The bullet grazed Trump’s right ear, and after ducking for cover, Trump emerged with blood streaming down his face and raised his fist in defiance.
Musk’s endorsement of Trump had received 323K reposts at the time of writing. He also shared the picture of Trump raising his fist immediately after the shooting, which has been going viral since the incident. The photo currently has over 300K reposts.
“Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt,” Musk also posted. Theodore Roosevelt had famously continued his speech after being shot by an assassin in 1912, telling the audience: “Friends, I shall ask you to be as quiet as possible. I don’t know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot—but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose.”
Musk’s endorsement of Trump comes at at time when Trump has surged ahead of Joe Biden in most polls following the recent Presidential TV debate. Most observers had felt that President Biden hadn’t appeared lucid and coherent at the debate, and questioned his ability to continue to be President for another four years. Even left-leaning publications including the New York Times and several top Democrat donors had questioned his ability to lead the nation given his advanced age.
Musk, meanwhile, had recently made a large donation to a Pro-Trump PAC in May. Musk reportedly gave a significant donation to America PAC, a powerful political action committee established in Austin, Texas, Bloomberg News had reported. This was Musk’s largest ever political donation. He had previously donated $35,000 to the Obama Victory Fund in 2011. Musk, though, has appeared to criticize Biden several times on X, chiefly because of his stance favouring illegal immigration, and Biden appeared to have returned the favour, once not inviting Tesla, the world’s largest EV manufacturer, to a summit of EV manufacturers in the US.
Elon Musk has now gone ahead and explicitly made his own political preferences clear, and endorsed Donald Trump for President. It could be a powerful endorsement. Musk is not only the richest man in the world, but also one of the most powerful — he controls the X media platform, and has the ability to change discourse on major issues. And given Musk’s popularity, his wealth, and his penchant for picking up big challenges that change the course of human history, this endorsement might be a precursor to Musk’s own eventual Presidential run at some point in the future.