Elon Musk has made it clear he doesn’t like Joe Biden. However since Musk formally endorsed and is reportedly financially backing Donald Trump on this yr’s presidential marketing campaign, Biden is returning the favor. The president is now straight campaigning on Musk — and different high-profile and rich Silicon Valley VCs — supporting Trump’s bid.
“I am sick,” Biden wrote on Musk’s social media website X on Wednesday after testing optimistic for COVID, earlier than revealing a bait-and-switch within the subsequent publish: “of Elon Musk and his wealthy buddies making an attempt to purchase this election.”
Hours earlier, Biden’s marketing campaign despatched out a fundraising textual content saying that “the richest particular person on the planet is now on Crew MAGA” and accused Musk of “utilizing his fortune to attempt to management our democracy.”
Musk has pledged to donate $45 million a month to a Trump-aligned tremendous PAC over the following 4 months, $180 million in all.
Biden centering Musk in his marketing campaign is a notable escalation, contemplating he spent most of his presidency seemingly pretending the billionaire did not exist — like when he famously held an “EV Summit” in 2021 the place Tesla wasn’t invited; or when he stated that Detroit — not Tesla — was “main the world in electrical autos.”
Campaigning in opposition to Musk’s involvement is a bet given the billionaire’s sway over Silicon Valley and the tech trade, usually. A swath of Silicon Valley’s richest are backing the tremendous PAC Musk is reportedly contributing to, together with Sequoia Capital companions Shaun Maguire and Doug Leone. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz introduced they’ll financially help Trump’s marketing campaign largely because of the presidential candidate’s help for crypto, stance on AI in addition to Biden’s proposal to tax unrealized capital positive factors. Musk confidant David Sacks has been main the cost to drum up much more help for Trump, not simply on X but in addition in the true world, as he spoke onstage this week on the Republican Nationwide Conference.
After all, with Biden’s marketing campaign beneath risk, it’s doable he could not see a lot draw back to placing a highlight on Musk’s involvement. In spite of everything, Musk, Sacks and different energy gamers like Peter Thiel had been already animated sufficient to push Trump to choose JD Vance as his vice presidential nominee earlier than Biden made the Tesla CEO a spotlight of his campaigning. And the tremendous PAC many of those persons are piling cash into was fashioned in June.
Whether or not Biden slighted Musk due to his anti-union stance, or his embrace of far-right insurance policies, nearly does not matter. Being ignored clearly bothered Musk — he brings it up quite a bit.
Musk interacted with the Trump administration in just a few methods, together with serving on his financial advisory council, however he had by no means outright supported him as a candidate.
In the meantime, Musk has benefited materially from and through Biden’s presidency. The Inflation Discount Act set Tesla (and its battery accomplice Panasonic) as much as $41 billion in credit by 2032. Tesla hit its highest valuation ever in 2021 amid the broader wave of EV optimism (and after Hertz promised a big bulk buy of Musk’s vehicles). SpaceX and its satellite tv for pc enterprise Starlink has been a repeat winner of protection and different authorities contracts. And he did in the end find yourself assembly with Biden on the White Home in September 2023.
However his corporations are additionally going through a number of federal investigations, a few of which began throughout Biden’s presidency. He’s clearly extra ideologically aligned with Trump, and there are causes to imagine his corporations would proceed to learn from one other Trump presidency.
Biden embracing anti-Musk rhetoric because of this is already serving to him financially: On Thursday afternoon, Biden marketing campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg wrote on X that the publish calling out “Musk and his wealthy buddies” was “the second greatest elevating social publish” for the marketing campaign in additional than a yr.