Many of the people who hate Donald Trump also hate Elon Musk.
Life was at risk“Two people have already tried to kill me (on separate occasions) in the last eight months. They were arrested with guns held about a 20 minute drive from Tesla HQ in Texas,” he wrote.
The relationship between Trump and Musk is complicated. It has many facets: two politicians determined to challenge the status quo, two rebellious cultural icons railing against liberal hegemony, two business titans in charge of competing social media platforms, two wild men targeted by corporate media and angering the establishment.
We were only moments away from a hellish dystopia never before imagined. A successful assassination would have marked a definitive end to American unity and the limits of what our nation could endure.
A simple timeline
A few days before the 2016 presidential election, Musk
Said CNBC: “I feel a little bit stronger” [Trump] “He’s not the right person for the job. He doesn’t seem to have the character to be a positive influence on the United States.”
In December of that year, Musk participated in a presidential advisory forum to advise on a range of policy issues, and his tone was decidedly centrist.
mask
It wasn’t political yet. at the time.
Hatred for Trump continued to grow, especially among Hollywood’s elite: In May 2017, Kathy Griffin posed with a replica of Donald Trump’s severed head.
Musk stepped down from his role as an adviser to the president in June 2017 after Trump announced he would withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
The media’s hostility towards Trump is reflected in Paul Krugman’sDonald Trump is trying to kill you.”
Then 2020 came along. In January of that year, before life was thrown into complete chaos, Trump gave an interview to CNBC in which he said:
Praised Musk called him “one of our nation’s great geniuses,” on a par with Thomas Edison. Then COVID-19 hit. And in May of that year, President Trump defended Musk in a controversy over Tesla’s factory closure.
Then: January 6, 2021.
The following year, relations between the two countries deteriorated again, and Trump announced he was launching an alternative to Twitter.
Trump made his first post on Truth Social in February 2022. In April of that year, Musk said “Truth Social (that’s a terrible name) exists because Twitter censors free speech,” adding that the platform should be called “Trumpet.”
In May, Musk suggested he might reinstate Trump’s Twitter account, calling the ban “extremely stupid” and a “morally bad decision.”
At a rally in Anchorage, Alaska in July 2022, President Trump called Elon a “bullshit artist” and questioned his ability to acquire Twitter.
In response to
Tweet from Breitbart News“It’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail off into the sunset,” Musk said.
About two months later, Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion. President Trump said he was “very pleased” to have Musk at the helm, adding that the company was now in “good hands.”
In June 2022, Musk told Bloomberg:
It is not yet decidedSoon after, he comfortable Until Ron DeSantis.
August 8: Mar-a-Lago attack. Then, in November 2022, X reinstated Trump’s Twitter account after it had been suspended for nearly two years.
In May 2023, DeSantis finally announced his run for president on a mask platform.
Twitter Space meltdown.
Relations between the two men have improved significantly in the past year: In March 2024, Musk flew to Florida for a meeting with Trump, apparently regarding a donation from the SpaceX founder.
In May, The Wall Street Journal reported on a “growing alliance” between Trump and Musk. Around the same time, CNN
Announced The outlet’s deeply cynical take is that Musk needs a challenge, specifically, the accumulation of “political capital to match his enormous wealth,” as they say Musk is “being Trumpified.”
News also spread that Musk was considering serving as an adviser to Trump if he were to win. And, as CNN complained, “Musk has increasingly made his support for right-wing causes, and in some cases extremism, central to his identity.” Here’s CNN’s evidence:
He is a vocal opponent of coronavirus lockdowns and an anti-vaccination stalwart, has given conservative voices an advantage on Platform X, known as Twitter, which he bought in 2022, and has promoted racist conspiracy theories about immigrants.
Musk has also become fixated on the “virus of the woke mind,” a term some conservatives use to describe progressive causes, and has made a clarion call for a Republican victory, warning that the country will be “catastrophic” unless there is a “red wave” in November.
After Trump was convicted of 34 felonies, Elon
It pointed out “Today, public confidence in the American justice system has been deeply eroded,” he said, adding that “if a former president can be convicted on such a trivial matter, motivated not by justice but by political motives, then anyone could risk a similar fate.”
Iron Man
Then on July 13, a gunman fired eight shots at Trump at a rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, narrowly missing his head.
We were only moments away from a hellish dystopia never before imagined. A successful assassination would have marked a definitive end to American unity and the limits of what our nation could endure.
Musk posted the photo, which is one of the most incredible photographs ever taken.
Notice regarding X“I fully support President Trump and wish him a speedy recovery,” he tweeted, in what became the most iconic tweet of the historic event. Added“The last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt.”
The day before the rally, Musk donated a large amount of
Donate Pro-Trump America PAC. Musk has decided to join Trump and the growing anti-elite movement. It remains to be seen how this will play out, but it is clear that Musk is risking his fortune and his future by breaking with the elites of Washington and Silicon Valley and forging his own path. If past experience has been any indication, it would be a mistake to bet against him.
