By Helen Coster and Alexandra Ulmer
(Reuters) – U.S. billionaire Elon Musk has used his X social media platform and his enormous wealth to support Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s efforts to get reelected, going far beyond what political megadonors historically do.
Musk, 53, who has said he has voted for Democratic presidential candidates in the past, has become more publicly right-leaning during this election campaign. He endorsed Trump in July and appeared with him in Pennsylvania this month.
If reelected, Trump promises to make Musk head of a government efficiency commission, a job Musk vows will help rid the country of regulations he views as bad for the economy and a deterrent to doing business.
The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and owner of X has millions of dollars in government contracts and his companies face significant and at times costly government regulations related to consumer and environmental protections.
Neither Musk nor the presidential campaign of Democrat Kamala Harris responded to Reuters requests for comment about Musk’s pro-Trump activities.
Here are some of the ways Musk is supporting Trump.
AMERICA PAC
Musk’s pro-Trump spending group America PAC is playing a major role in helping mobilize and register voters in battleground states that could decide the election. Musk, ranked by Forbes as the world’s richest person, so far has supplied at least $75 million to the political action committee, according to federal disclosures.
America PAC spent around $72 million of that total in the July-September period, according to disclosures filed to the Federal Election Commission. That is more than any other pro-Trump super PAC focused on turning out voters.
America PAC is struggling in some battleground states to meet door-knocking goals and is investigating claims that some canvassers lied about the number of voters they have contacted, Reuters reported last week.
X PLATFORM
Musk has over 202 million followers on the X social media platform, which he bought for $44 billion in October 2022, when it was known as Twitter. Since endorsing Trump, he has used the platform to promote the Republican candidate. Some of his posts spread misinformation and sow doubt about the integrity of the upcoming election.
In July, for example, he commented on a post from Republican House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson, writing: “The goal all along has been to import as many illegal voters as possible,” repeating the false claim that Democrats are intentionally allowing non-citizens into the country so that they can vote in the election.
The same month, he shared a video, generated with artificial intelligence and manipulating Vice President Harris’ voice, in which Harris, the daughter of a Jamaican father and Indian mother, described herself as the “ultimate diversity hire” and criticized President Joe Biden.
Musk has been critical of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programs meant to boost racial and ethnic representation at workplaces, posting in January, for example, that “DEI is just another word for racism. Shame on anyone who uses it.”
X and other social media platforms have been under greater scrutiny since 2016, when Russia interfered in the U.S. presidential election to try to boost Trump’s candidacy and harm his opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Since Musk’s acquisition of then-Twitter in 2022, civil rights groups have raised concerns over a rise in hate speech and misinformation due to reduced content moderation.
Under X’s current policy, the platform may “label posts containing misleading media to help people understand their authenticity and to provide additional context” or remove misleading posts that have serious risk of harm.
Yet researchers say it continues to be a source of election misinformation, through fake accounts and Musk’s own amplification of that content.
MILLION-DOLLAR GIVEAWAYS
Musk is also promising to give $1 million each day to randomly selected people who sign his online petition pledging to support the First and Second amendments of the U.S. Constitution, which protect the rights to free speech and gun ownership. The petition is only open to signatories who are registered voters in seven battleground states likely to decide the presidential election.
The petition falls into a gray area of election law, and legal experts are divided about whether Musk could be running afoul of prohibitions on paying people to register to vote. Critics say it is a ploy to help drum up support for Trump.
America PAC has been publishing promotional video interviews and photos of people who have won the $1 million giveaways on Musk’s X, where they garner millions of views. Petition signers need to provide their address and cellphone number, suggesting they could then be contacted by America PAC door-knockers.
CAMPAIGN BARNSTORMING
Musk joined Trump at an Oct. 5 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the scene of a July assassination attempt against the Republican candidate, and returned to the state for additional campaign stops less than two weeks later.
While touring in Pennsylvania, Musk made a string of false claims about election fraud, some of them echoing those made by Trump the last four years.
He also encouraged people to use his X platform to shine a spotlight on potential election cheating.
“If people think there’s a fraud, then they should post the images, post the videos, post the evidence,” he said.
(Reporting by Helen Coster and Alexandra Ulmer, editing by Ross Colvin and Howard Goller)
Comments