How Elon
Musk Is Influencing Donald Trump
Their
fast-evolving political friendship has become a potential minefield, as Mr.
Musk’s sprawling businesses may present conflicts of interest if Mr. Trump is
elected in November.
Ryan
MacTheodore SchleiferMaggie Haberman
By Ryan
MacTheodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman
Ryan Mac
reports on tech accountability. Theodore Schleifer and Maggie Haberman are
covering the 2024 presidential campaigns.
Sept. 6,
2024
In a
live-streamed conversation on X with former President Donald J. Trump last
month, Elon Musk raised the idea of a “government efficiency commission.” Such
a council could ensure that taxpayers’ money was “spent in a good way,” Mr.
Musk said during their more-than-two-hour talk.
“I’d love
it,” Mr. Trump replied.
On Thursday,
Mr. Trump followed up on Mr. Musk’s suggestion. In a speech at the Economic
Club of New York, Mr. Trump said he planned to appoint Mr. Musk, who leads
Tesla, SpaceX and X, as the head of a new government efficiency commission if
he was elected president in November.
The
commission would audit the “entire federal government” and “make
recommendations for drastic reforms,” Mr. Trump said.
The
announcement capped weeks of discussions between Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk, who
have bonded over a mutual hobbyhorse of eliminating wasteful spending, three
people close to the men said. Mr. Trump has told Mr. Musk that he wants the
tech entrepreneur to slash the federal government’s costs, just as he did at
his social media company X, one of the people said.
Mr. Musk,
the world’s richest man, has started to influence Mr. Trump as the Republican
presidential nominee heads into November’s election. That the tech mogul has
the ear of the candidate throws open what each can get out of an alliance — and
creates a potential minefield. Their political friendship is particularly
tricky because Mr. Musk has a sprawling set of businesses, which may present
conflicts of interest if Mr. Trump is elected.
Notably, Mr.
Musk’s rocket maker, SpaceX, and his electric automaker, Tesla, have received
billions of dollars in federal contracts and subsidies. Mr. Musk and some of
his companies are also under scrutiny for various infractions from federal
agencies including the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission and
the Securities and Exchange Commission.
“The
conflict-of-interest issue is one of the more obvious concerns in this
appointment, with SpaceX having government contracts and Tesla benefiting from
federal tax credits,” said Ann Skeet, a senior director at the Markkula Center
for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “That’s just what happens if Musk
is in a position of power in a government agency.”
Mr. Musk,
53, has wooed right-wing world leaders before to benefit himself and his
companies. In Brazil, he became close with then-President Jair Bolsonaro as he
sought advantages for SpaceX. Mr. Musk also ardently supports President Javier
Milei of Argentina, a country with abundant deposits of lithium, a mineral that
is used in Tesla’s car batteries. Mr. Milei has promised to cut government
spending and encourage mining operations.
Mr. Musk,
who endorsed Mr. Trump for the presidency in July, did not respond to a request
for comment. Before Mr. Trump’s speech on Thursday, Mr. Musk posted on X: “I
look forward to serving America if the opportunity arises. No pay, no title, no
recognition is needed.”
Brian
Hughes, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, said in a statement, “Elon Musk
has dedicated himself to America’s future by offering to serve with President
Trump to ensure our government works more efficiently and uses America’s
taxpayer dollars effectively.” He added that Mr. Trump, 78, was “committed to
having Mr. Musk lead this commission to analyze the functionality of our
government.”
Mr. Musk has
long used his account on X, where he has nearly 197 million followers, to push
his political views. In recent weeks, he has posted messages excoriating the
Biden administration’s policies on government spending and criticizing the
campaign promises of Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
Some of his
posts have become more erratic. On Sunday, Mr. Musk endorsed a post that
suggested that women did not have the ability for critical thought and should
not participate in government or democracy. On Monday, he shared an artificial
intelligence-generated image of Ms. Harris dressed as a communist.
Mr. Musk has
also posted about spending cuts. He has expressed concerns over what he views
as wasteful costs at his businesses, including at X, where he slashed more than
75 percent of the work force in 2022 and 2023. X’s market valuation has dropped
more than 55 percent since Mr. Musk bought the company in 2022, as advertisers
have shied from the platform.
“Government
spending is driving America to bankruptcy,” Mr. Musk posted on X on Thursday.
Mr. Musk and
Mr. Trump were not always fans of each other. Mr. Musk previously said the
former president should “sail into the sunset” and instead supported Governor
Ron DeSantis of Florida. Mr. Trump once used an expletive to describe Mr. Musk
as a phony.
But their
political relationship was kindled with a meeting in March in Palm Beach, Fla.,
as Mr. Trump sought cash infusions for his campaign. Around then, Mr. Musk also
told a friend that he wanted to keep his support for Mr. Trump quiet while
backing him financially, the friend recalled.
Mr. Musk has
since abandoned that caution. Over the spring, he seeded a pro-Trump super PAC
and planned to put as much as $180 million into the group. He also recruited
some of his friends, such as the tech investor Joe Lonsdale, to front some of
the early money for the PAC, which planned to do field organizing for Mr.
Trump.
But the
foray has not been smooth. Mr. Musk hired a team for the PAC that he met
through Texas politics, but fired them after about two months, replacing them
with national political operatives who had worked for Mr. DeSantis. Thousands
of field organizers were affected by the switch.
Mr. Musk has
since hired a top Republican political operative, Chris Young, to personally
advise him on how to grow more sophisticated in his political work.
In June, at
Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting, Mr. Musk said he and Mr. Trump had been
speaking. “I have had some conversations with him, and he does call me out of
the blue for no reason,” Mr. Musk said.
After an
assassination attempt against Mr. Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., in July, Mr.
Musk decided to publicly speak up about his support for the Republican
candidate.
“I fully
endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Mr. Musk wrote on X.
He later posted a photograph of Mr. Trump moments after the assassination
attempt and added: “Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore
Roosevelt.”
During their
conversation on X last month, Mr. Trump called Mr. Musk “the greatest cutter”
and praised him for firing employees who wanted to strike. In a podcast
appearance a few weeks later, Mr. Trump called Mr. Musk a “brilliant guy” who
could be a consultant to his administration “involved in cutting some of the
fat.”
On Thursday,
Mr. Trump provided few details of what an efficiency commission would do, but
said “fraud and improper payments” had cost taxpayers “hundreds of billions of
dollars.” He did not say if Mr. Musk planned to divest from or take time off
from his companies for the role, should it come to pass.
“As the
first order of business, this commission will develop an action plan to totally
eliminate fraud and improper payments within six months, saving trillions of
dollars,” Mr. Trump said, without providing any evidence.
Ryan Mac
covers corporate accountability across the global technology industry. More
about Ryan Mac
Theodore
Schleifer writes about campaign finance and the influence of billionaires in
American politics. More about Theodore Schleifer
Maggie
Haberman is a senior political correspondent reporting on the 2024 presidential
campaign, down ballot races across the country and the investigations into
former President Donald J. Trump. More about Maggie Haberman
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