“A star is born: Elon,” mentioned Donald Trump in a prolonged shout out to his greatest donor whereas claiming victory within the US presidential race on Wednesday morning.
Trump’s win ushers in a brand new period for Musk — already the world’s richest particular person with a $260bn fortune — whose gamble on a knife-edge US election paid off as he’s set to change into one of many incoming president’s most influential political and enterprise advisers.
Musk’s promised function as head of a brand new Division of Authorities Effectivity will give the billionaire sweeping powers to suggest deep cuts to what he deems a “huge federal paperwork . . . holding America again in a giant manner”.
Musk has additionally vowed to champion deregulation and can achieve affect over US coverage on synthetic intelligence, area exploration and electrical autos — all sectors that he has a private stake in via his management of xAI, SpaceX and Tesla.
“He’s a personality, he’s a particular man, he’s a super-genius,” Trump mentioned of Musk on Wednesday. “We’ve to guard our geniuses, we don’t have that lots of them.”
Earlier within the night, Musk posted a Photoshopped image of himself carrying a sink into the Oval Workplace, an offbeat reference to an identical picture that he tweeted when he entered X simply forward of buying the social media platform for $44bn in October 2022.
One other image on Tuesday confirmed him huddled in dialog with Trump throughout an election evening celebration on the president-elect’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida with the caption: “The longer term is gonna be so 🔥 [fire emoji].”
Musk — a self-declared “free-speech absolutist” who mentioned he had beforehand voted for Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama — has moved sharply to the best lately. He aligned with Trump’s marketing campaign on points equivalent to immigration and regulation, distaste for the mainstream media and what he dubbed “woke” politics.
Musk publicly endorsed Trump hours after he survived an assassination try on July 13 and steadily dedicated extra time and assets to his re-election.
He contributed greater than $100mn to the pro-Republican America Pac, hosted city halls in key states equivalent to Pennsylvania, and gave away $1mn a day to voters who signed his petition in favour of free speech. On election day, he bussed Amish voters to polling stations who have been unable to drive themselves.
Musk has gained an enormous return on that funding already — Trump’s victory helped add billions to his wealth as Tesla’s inventory rose practically 12 per cent on Wednesday morning.
Within the months main as much as the vote, Musk wielded his personal megaphone — X — as its proprietor and the most well-liked account with greater than 200mn followers. He flooded the platform with pro-Trump messaging, allegations about election fraud and warnings that Kamala Harris would destroy America ought to she win the White Home.
Over the course of 24 hours on Tuesday, he tweeted practically 200 occasions, in keeping with an evaluation by the Monetary Instances, racking up about 955mn views, after averaging greater than 100 posts a day within the month main as much as the vote.
Throughout an interview with conservative media character Tucker Carlson on Tuesday night, Musk mentioned: “My philosophy is you play, play to win, and never by half measure.”
Critics have argued that Musk has injected bias into the platform’s algorithms and amplified far-right narratives and conspiracy theories with little or no proof, similtaneously reducing again its moderation capabilities and fact-checking.
Some have warned that Musk grew to become one of many greatest purveyors of election misinformation and conspiracies within the pre-election interval, pushing claims of potential voter fraud, for instance. An evaluation by fact-checking group PolitiFact of 450 X posts by Musk within the first two weeks of October discovered a wealth of misinformation, which acquired practically 679mn views and greater than 5.3mn likes.
However Musk’s electioneering has received plaudits from Trump’s inside circle and libertarian tech allies, who argue that his extraordinary intervention has bolstered Republican voices and introduced transparency to politics.
In a podcast on Tuesday, Donald Trump Jr mentioned: “I don’t suppose this race would even be shut if it wasn’t for what Elon Musk is doing with X and displaying individuals what’s happening.”
Shaun Maguire, a accomplice at Silicon Valley enterprise capital agency Sequoia Capital and serial Musk backer and Trump supporter, wrote on X: “The turning level was Elon shopping for Twitter”.
The X chief could carry with him to the White Home a solid of allies from Silicon Valley, together with tech investor and podcaster David Sacks and Palmer Luckey, co-founder of defence tech start-up Anduril, to whom he’s already making guarantees. Musk replied to Luckey on X that it was “Essential to open DOD/Intel to entrepreneurial firms like yours”, referring to the US Division of Protection and intelligence providers.
Buyers are additionally betting that Musk’s personal firms will stand to profit. Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives mentioned even when EV subsidies have been withdrawn by Trump — a famous sceptic of the expertise — “Tesla has the dimensions and scope that’s unmatched within the EV business and this dynamic may give Musk and Tesla a transparent aggressive benefit in a non-subsidy surroundings”.
Even earlier than the election outcome emerged, Musk made it clear he would play an lively function in US politics for years to come back. Throughout a livestreamed Q&A as he flew on a personal jet from Texas to observe the outcomes with Trump at Mar-a-Lago, Musk pledged to proceed financing his America Pac regardless of the final result.
The X chief mentioned the lobbying group would “intention to weigh in closely on the midterms” in 2026 and search to affect elections on the district legal professional and judicial stage across the nation.
“One thing must be completed to counter the harm that [George] Soros has completed to the American system,” mentioned Musk, in a reference to the billionaire financier who’s a outstanding supporter of liberal and progressive causes. “We’ve to have DAs that shield the residents of their cities. It’s simply insane that we’ve so lots of our metropolis DAs that don’t prosecute crime.”
On the livestream, Musk fleshed out plans for a task main the mooted authorities effectivity division — which he has nicknamed Doge in a reference to the meme token coin he promotes on X — in a second Trump administration. The Tesla chief mentioned he wished to chop a “huge federal paperwork [that] is holding again America in a giant manner”.
“We’re going to do a complete evaluate of all the federal government businesses . . . there’s a whole lot of duplicate accountability the place a number of businesses even have overlapping portfolios,” Musk mentioned. “There’s lots of people that work for the federal government that we simply must transition them to extra productive roles within the personal sector.”
Musk mentioned the cuts could be completed in a “humane manner” and floated the concept of paying authorities staff for 2 years whereas they searched for brand spanking new jobs. He additionally mentioned he wished to see time period limits imposed on bureaucrats and to see a variety of guidelines considerably scaled again.
“We nonetheless need laws, they only should be needed. I liken it to referees on a discipline. You don’t wish to don’t have any referees, however you don’t wish to have extra referees than gamers,” he mentioned. “That’s loopy.”
Extra reporting by Cristina Criddle in San Francisco
