The Tesla CEO, Trump’s most influential marketing campaign backer, has became a key energy dealer in presidential transition.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk is diving even deeper into the world of politics after Donald Trump’s election win, cosying as much as the president-elect and providing him enter on key administration hires, in accordance with US media studies.
Musk, who donated $119m to a pro-Trump political motion committee and aggressively campaigned for the Republican, has made near-daily visits to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida since Election Day on Tuesday, spending time with the president-elect and his household, CNN reported.
Kai Trump, Donald Trump’s granddaughter, posted a photograph of herself with Musk and his little one on social media, joking that the billionaire was “reaching uncle standing”.
Elon reaching uncle standing 😂 pic.twitter.com/vufSffziZN
— Kai Trump (@KaiTrumpGolfs) November 10, 2024
Musk is making his voice heard on vital staffing deliberations, in accordance with CNN, whereas utilizing the X social media platform, which he owns, to advertise his political imaginative and prescient.
“He positively inserts himself on a regular basis. That’s his model,” tech journalist Kara Swisher instructed CNN. “I’ve heard from Trump folks, calling me, saying, ‘Oh, wow. That is odd.’ And it’s.”
Over the weekend and on Monday, Musk posted endorsements for Florida Senator Rick Scott to steer the Senate and invited the general public to recommend candidates for Trump’s cupboard.
The billionaire additionally shared posts by former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, whose title has been floated for an administration position, advocating to “radically downsize” the federal government.
“The obstacles are overcoming the Kafkaesque nature of the principles governing this huge forms and guaranteeing that maniacally devoted small-government revolutionaries be a part of this administration!” Musk wrote in a single submit, responding to Ramaswamy’s suggestion.
Certainly, the obstacles are overcoming the Kafkaesque nature of the principles governing this huge forms and guaranteeing that maniacally devoted small-government revolutionaries be a part of this administration! https://t.co/ObfnIeuTXa
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 11, 2024
Musk’s entry to Trump at Mar-a-Lago, which CNN reported has change into the de facto nucleus of Trump’s presidential transition, has given him an unlimited quantity of sway in a approach that might profit his companies, analysts mentioned.
His electrical automobile agency, Tesla, has already seen a lift with its shares leaping 14 p.c the day after Trump’s election win and the specter of tariffs on Chinese language imports doubtless blocking opponents from the nation.
“We’ve seen lobbying efforts. We’ve seen tremendous PACs [political action committees], however this can be a completely different stage we’ve by no means seen earlier than,” Gita Johar, a professor at Columbia Enterprise Faculty, instructed The Guardian. “There shall be some quid professional quo the place he [Musk] will profit.”
Whereas Trump earlier floated the concept of naming Musk “secretary of cost-cutting”, he’s unlikely to take any job that requires Senate affirmation or disrupts his companies, Al Jazeera’s Alan Fischer reported.
As an alternative, Musk may serve on a “blue-ribbon committee the place he would nonetheless have monumental entry however wouldn’t be topic to authorities ethics guidelines”, in accordance with CNN.
With such shut ties to the president-elect, Musk is prone to push onerous for deregulation, which he has repeatedly blamed for slowing innovation in his corporations, together with SpaceX and Tesla.
“America is a nation of builders,” Musk wrote on X on the day of Trump’s election victory. “Quickly, you can be free to construct.”
