Elon Musk's backing of Donald Trump.

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Today's read: 13 minutes.

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Quick hits.

1. The Supreme Court appears likely to uphold a 2022 federal rule regulating untraceable weapons, or “ghost guns,” after hearing oral arguments in a challenge to the rule yesterday. (The arguments)
2. Hurricane Milton is expected to make landfall in Florida tonight as a Category 3 storm. Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) urged residents along the western Florida Gulf Coast to evacuate. (The hurricane)
3. 13 states and Washington, D.C., sued TikTok, alleging the social media platform uses intentionally addictive software that harms children. (The suit)
4. The U.S. federal deficit grew to $1.8 trillion in fiscal year 2024, and the Congressional Budget Office reported that interest payments on the national debt reached $950 billion. (The numbers)
5. Mohamed Bahi, a former official in New York City Mayor Eric Adams’s (D) administration, was arrested and charged with witness tampering and destruction of evidence related to illegal donations to Adams’s 2021 mayoral campaign. (The arrest)

Today's topic.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk. On Saturday, the tech executive joined former President Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the attempted assassination of Trump in July. Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the owner of X (formerly Twitter), addressed the rally’s attendees and reaffirmed his support for Trump’s candidacy while criticizing Democrats on a range of issues. Broadly, the speech exemplified Musk’s evolution from a political moderate to an outspoken advocate for the former president. 

Musk’s in-person cameo was his first appearance alongside Trump at a rally. In his speech, the businessman called the 2024 election “the most important election of our lifetime,” suggesting that "the other side wants to take away your freedom of speech." He also focused on the importance of voting, encouraging attendees to register their family and friends ahead of upcoming registration deadlines. 

Musk’s support of the former president is a notable departure from his previously stated political views. In 2018, Musk said he was a registered independent and politically moderate, and in 2022 said he had historically voted for Democratic candidates. As recently as 2021, he stated that he prefers to “stay out of politics.” Musk has also trumpeted positions typically associated with progressives, such as universal basic income and international efforts to address climate change. 

Musk’s shift toward the Republican Party has coincided with his conservative stances on topics like immigration and LGBTQ issues. Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk began donating to Republican candidates and causes earlier than previously known, including giving tens of millions of dollars to groups associated with Trump aide Stephen Miller and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R). 

However, Musk has a more checkered history with Trump personally. Musk said he voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020, and has regularly criticized Trump’s policies during his term. The two seemed to reconcile in 2020, only to publicly feud again in 2022. Then, in May 2023, Musk helped launch DeSantis’s presidential campaign in an online event marred by technical glitches, which Trump mocked. 

However, after DeSantis dropped out in January, Musk maintained a relationship with Trump and his team, reportedly meeting with them in March to discuss fundraising. Shortly after the attempted assassination in July, Musk announced his endorsement of the former president and hosted a two-hour discussion with Trump on X. Musk also reportedly pledged to commit $45 million a month to Trump’s campaign through his America PAC (political action committee), but he has denied this report. 

This week, the PAC announced that it was offering cash payouts to people who refer registered voters to sign a petition pledging support for the First and Second Amendments, with the goal of securing the signatures of 1 million voters in seven key swing states. Additionally, The Guardian reported that the America PAC currently has 300-400 canvassers on the ground advocating for Trump in seven swing states. 

Today, we’ll explore views from the left and right on the evolving relationship between Trump and Musk — and its potential impact on the 2024 election. Then, my take. 

What the left is saying.

• The left criticizes Musk’s decision to back Trump, arguing that he has undermined his legacy as a visionary leader. 
• Some suggest Trump and Musk practice a flawed brand of populism. 
• Others say Musk and other tech executives have shifted toward Trump out of self-interest.

In MSNBC, Ayman Mohyeldin said “Elon Musk's Trump rally appearance just sealed his legacy.”

“Two years ago, when billionaire Elon Musk bought what was once called Twitter, he vowed to keep it a nonbiased platform. In fact, that was his mission statement… Instead, Musk used his immense influence on his own platform to tell his followers to vote for Republicans in the 2022 midterms. He also voiced his support for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the Republican presidential primary,” Mohyeldin wrote. “After the campaigns of Musk’s preferred candidates, DeSantis and later Vivek Ramaswamy, went down in flames, the billionaire planned a spring trip to Mar-a-Lago… by July, we learned Musk was already donating a sizable amount to a political group working to elect Trump.”

“That brings us to Sunday, when Trump took to the podium again in Butler, nearly three months after that failed assassination attempt. Except this time, Trump was joined by his friend Musk — the same man who once proclaimed he would keep his social media platform politically neutral and the same man who once stated Trump wasn’t the right candidate to lead this country,” Mohyeldin said. “What happened on that stage on Sunday in Butler will be the legacy of Elon Musk. The man once seen as a tech visionary, a real-life Tony Stark, will now be known as the man who traded in his reputation and his self-professed principles to become nothing more than a reactionary Lex Luthor in a MAGA hat.”

In The Atlantic, Tom Nichols wrote about “the phony populism of Trump and Musk.”

“Musk has presented himself on his own platform as a champion of the voiceless and the oppressed, but his behavior reveals him as an enemy of speech that isn’t in his own interest,” Nichols said. “What happened in Butler over the weekend, however, was not some unique American moment. Around the world, fantastically wealthy people are hoodwinking ordinary voters, warning that dark forces—always an indistinct ‘they’ and ‘them’—are conspiring to take away their rights and turn their nation into an immense ghetto full of undesirables.”

“These movements are all remarkably alike: They claim to represent the common voter, especially the ‘forgotten people’ and the dispossessed, but in reality, the base voters for these groups are not the poorest or most disadvantaged in their society,” Nichols wrote. “Musk, for his part, is the perfect addition to this crew. Rich beyond imagination, he still has the wheedling affect of a needy youngster who requires (and demands) attention. Like Trump, he seems unable to believe that although money can buy many things—luxury digs, expensive lawyers, obsequious staff—it cannot buy respect. For people such as Musk and Trump, this popular rejection is baffling and enraging.”

In The New York Times, Chris Hughes asked “why do people like Elon Musk love Donald Trump?”

“It would be easy to write off tech’s rightward drift as nothing more than the rich acting in their economic self-interest, but Silicon Valley has always been driven by profit, and it hasn’t tilted Republican since the 1980s. Even now, it remains largely Democratic,” Hughes said. “Mr. Trump appeals to some Silicon Valley elites because they identify with the man. To them, he is a fellow victim of the state, unjustly persecuted for his bold ideas. Practically, he is also the shield they need to escape accountability. Mr. Trump may threaten democratic norms and spread disinformation; he could even set off a recession, but he won’t challenge their ability to build the technology they like, no matter the social cost.

“These leaders are betting they can sway Mr. Trump to their ideas through public support and financial backing, and they might be right. Once a critic of cryptocurrency, he has shifted to opposing regulation after crypto executives donated to his campaign. Mr. Trump recently proposed a ‘government efficiency commission’ — an idea Mr. Musk floated to him only weeks earlier,” Hughes wrote. “As much as they want to influence Mr. Trump’s policies, they also want to strike back at the Biden-Harris administration, which they believe has unfairly targeted their industry.”

What the right is saying.

• The right praises Musk for political views that seem attuned to the concerns of regular Americans.
• Some say Musk is supporting Trump on principle — and at the expense of his own business interests.
• Others argue Musk has embraced the worst of Trump’s politics. 

In RedState, Brandon Morse explored “why Elon Musk is such a powerful player in politics.”

“Tech CEOs often find themselves at the mercy of politicians. When they say jump, they ask how high. However, Musk's power and personality is such that politicians actually fear him to a certain extent,” Morse wrote. “Why? It's not just because he's become something of a central figure in public discourse through X and his community notes feature. It's because there's a very large amount of people who respect and like Musk to the point where his political opinions actually have weight.”

“Musk might be a successful billionaire, but he's always had a penchant for being one of the people.… Musk does not have that cold exterior trying to appear warm and personable, he legitimately is that way. The man will wade into conversations with people as if he's just one of the folks,” Morse said. “While many might hate him for backing Donald Trump, his political influence cannot be denied. It's become so influential, that there are rumors circulating around that Musk might very well play a part in our political system directly. This rumor truly picked up steam once Donald Trump made a comment that maybe he would bring Musk on to help him make government more efficient to a point where it could look and function a bit differently. “

In PJ Media, Scott Pinsker wrote about “the remarkable evolution of Elon Musk.”

“‘Register to vote, OK?’ Musk told the audience. ‘And get everyone you know to register to vote… If they don’t, this will be the last election. That’s my prediction.’... With those words, Musk demonstrated his newfound proficiency at political jiu-jitsu, taking the Democrats’ asinine assertion that ‘Democracy is on the ballot!’ and flipping ‘em on their back,” Pinsker said. “He’s not doing it to make more money. (I don’t even know if money is a meaningful metric when you’re already worth $250 billion.) That’s not his motivation; if anything, being pro-MAGA will fatally stigmatize the Tesla brand amongst those most likely to buy one.”

“Agree or disagree with Musk’s principles, but his pro-MAGA actions represent the most extraordinary ‘Profiles in Courage’ in American business history. Musk is risking more than anyone else… because even if he ‘wins,’ his businesses will lose. But he doesn’t care, because he believes he’s right,” Pinsker wrote. “Over the past few years, Musk has influenced strategy in the Russia-Ukraine war and told the entire country of Brazil to get bent. Now, he just might be the deciding factor in a razor-close contest between Trump and Harris. With the power and influence he’s earned via his work ethic, vision, and business acumen, he’s less like a private citizen and more like an independent nation-state.”

In The Dispatch, Nick Catoggio discussed “Elon Musk and the arc of right-wing media.”

“Various pathologies of modern populism can be seen in how Musk has managed Twitter, starting with how easily his idealism tends to yield when it conflicts with his grubby interests. The man who touted Twitter as a civilization-saving bastion of free speech has colluded in censorship by authoritarian regimes. The man who vowed Twitter would no longer suppress truthful political news like the story about Hunter Biden’s laptop before the 2020 election has done that himself lately to protect his preferred candidate,” Catoggio said. “Elon has also allowed anti-elitism to trump more important civic concerns, like separating truth from fiction.”

“Musk’s arc as a media entrepreneur will follow the same arc as most other right-wing media figures: first exaggerating the corruption of the mainstream press and then treating that exaggeration as a moral license to behave more ruthlessly than they do. Instead of improving public discourse by undertaking to make it more truthful and virtuous, he’s ‘improved’ it by exploiting his power over it to inflict vicious wounds on his political enemies.”

My take.

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• On paper, Musk’s wealth and influence seems like a huge win for Trump.
• However, Musk’s material support comes with increasingly controversial views and unwanted baggage.
• I’m unsure if Musk’s celebrity influence is going to really help Trump, but his money and his online power certainly will. 

On the face of it, this alliance seems like a huge win for Donald Trump. Richest man in the world backing you? Check. Owns and operates one of the largest and most influential social media networks, where he is one of the most visible users and will be signal-boosting your message in the run up to the election? Check. A technocrat with both pro-business and pro-environment bona fides backing your campaign? Check. 

And no doubt, the first and last points of Musk’s endorsement are that his platform and his cash are going to provide huge benefits to Trump down the home stretch of this race. But that support comes with enormous caveats.

Musk makes for an unusual bedfellow. Before Trump entered the political scene, Musk was straightforwardly on the left, and even now his belief in the urgency of environmental protections remains unchanged — remember, Musk is so desperate to save the environment he thinks we need to colonize Mars. Yet he's throwing in with Trump, despite the Republican Party platform not mentioning climate change or the environment once, and despite all the ways Trump has previously disparaged him. Musk was also once a vocal Obama supporter who then said he’d support Biden and insisted Trump should sail off into the sunset.

Even though his support for Trump today is downright enthusiastic, he has backed into this position somewhat. Musk has framed his embrace of Trump as less of an endorsement of the right but as a condemnation of the left — in 2022, he posted a meme saying that his politics have stayed the same while most liberals have bolted to the left, leaving people like him behind. In reality, though, Musk’s views — and the issues he focuses on — have changed in the past few years, which leads me to believe that Musk’s celebrity influence may not drive as many people over to Trump’s camp as it seems.

For starters, Musk is almost as polarizing a figure as Trump. From a pure favorability perspective, Musk could actually hurt the Republican nominee’s ability to connect with moderates and independents. A recent NBC News poll found that Musk boasts an impressive +48 among Republicans, but is dragged by an incredible -73% among Democrats, as well as an underwhelming net -5% with independents. 

My own story might actually be indicative of the risk here: I cheered Musk’s proposed “free speech absolutism” when he bought Twitter (now X), and I was optimistic when the news broke that he wanted a large role at the company. I read the Twitter Files with genuine appreciation and was impressed by the access he granted to so many reporters for that project.But now, I see the platform as unambiguously worse than it was before Musk took over. Threaded replies are filled with spam, my follows are littered with bots, and the site is mired in misinformation and disinformation — some of which Musk himself advances into the public spotlight. Just yesterday, he shared a claim that FEMA was funneling funds towards unauthorized migrants and abandoning Americans in the middle of a disaster, on the very site people have come to rely on for critical information during disasters. And while the user experience suffers, X’s business doesn’t seem particularly healthy, either. After Musk allowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes back onto the platform, advertisers grew concerned about their products being associated with toxic ideas that were going unchecked, which Musk infamously responded to by telling advertisers “go fuck yourself.” 

Musk brings not only that recent baggage with him, but past controversies that each stand the chance of rubbing someone the wrong way — he’s blamed schools for his publicly estranged relationship with his transgender daughter, has dabbled in supporting “Great Replacement Theory,” and once called a man who was attempting to rescue children from a cave a “pedo.” When most moderates or liberals think of Elon Musk, they not only think of the affable nerd who loves cryptocurrency, electric cars, and building rockets — they also think of the controversial billionaire who has at one point said or done something that put them off. 

In politics, you want your celebrity surrogates to be more popular than your candidate — or at least reach voters that the candidate isn’t already reaching. I’m not sure Musk does that for Trump. 

As I’ve said before, I’m not a Musk hater. I think the world’s richest man is a complex person, with some great ideas and some terrible ideas — just like everyone else. For example, I support and admire his focus on government efficiency, even if I think his proposed solution — creating a government commission to rein in the government — is a little silly. What I’m even less convinced of, though, is that he is likable or trusted enough to do more for Trump than shower him with cash.

Which brings us back to the first and last points about Musk’s endorsement: his platform and his cash. X has hundreds of millions of daily active users, and Musk himself has over 200 million followers. Musk has a net worth of over $250 billion, and is overseeing a PAC that’s already spent tens of millions of dollars to support Trump and Republicans. While his value as a surrogate and personal supporter may be in question, that kind of reach and influence will undoubtedly benefit Trump as the presidential race reaches its home stretch.

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Your questions, answered.

Q: If somebody was being introduced to Tangle, what five pieces written by you or the Tangle team would you want people to read?

— Jake from Kansas City

Tangle: We’ve gotten a lot of new readers over the past couple months, so I really appreciate this question — and it was pretty fun to put an answer together. When I reflect on what makes a great Tangle article, I think it comes with a couple characteristics: a controversial topic, an-over-the-top partisan divide, and a “My take” where we can really find the kernel of truth within the issue we’re covering.

On the other hand, part of our success comes from our ability to vary our format as we see fit (along with less structured Friday pieces). 

So with that said, here are five Tangle articles that our team picked out that we think really exemplify the spectrum of what Tangle does:

1. Seeing ghosts.
2. Trump barred from the Colorado ballot.
3. Three things I got wrong.
4. The shooting in Uvalde, Texas.
5. The whole point of Tangle.

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Under the radar.

On Tuesday, the Biden administration finalized a new rule requiring water systems operators to replace service lines containing lead within the next 10 years. The regulation revises the Lead and Copper Rule, set out by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1991, which mandates systems to monitor drinking water at customer taps. Under the new rule, operators must replace water lines if lead concentration levels exceed 10 parts per billion (ppb) in more than 10% of customer taps sampled — a stricter standard than the previous 15 ppb threshold. The EPA projects that the revised rule will prevent up to 900,000 infants from being born underweight and roughly 1,500 cases of premature death from heart disease per year. However, some groups oppose the rule; public utility company American Water Works said the 10-year deadline would “delay needed infrastructure improvements… and in some communities result in significant disruption of neighborhoods.” Roll Call has the story.

Numbers.

• $259 billion. Elon Musk’s net worth as of October 8, according to Bloomberg. 
• $784 billion. The approximate market capitalization of Tesla as of October 8. 
• $210 billion. The reported valuation of SpaceX in June 2024.
• 79%. The percent decrease in the value of X since Musk purchased the platform, according to an estimate from Fidelity. 
• -11. Elon Musk’s net favorability rating among registered voters, according to a September 2024 NBC News poll.
• +5. Musk’s net favorability in August 2021. 
• $8.75 million. The amount that the America PAC has raised in the 2023-24 election cycle, according to its latest filing with the Federal Election Commission (through Q2 2024). 
• $7.70 million. The amount that the America PAC has spent on campaign events, mailings, materials, and media to date. 
• 17. The total number of individual contributors to the America PAC. 
• $87.29 million. The amount that the America PAC has spent on independent expenditures (communication advocating for or against a political candidate without coordinating with any candidate or party) to date. 

The extras.

• One year ago today we were on a brief break and did not release a newsletter.
• The most clicked link in yesterday’s newsletter was the reader essay on Christian nationalism we ran in this week’s Sunday edition.
• Nothing to do with politics: A non-profit is planting a giant sequoia forest in Detroit.
• Yesterday’s survey: 1,807 readers responded to our survey asking about Jack Smith’s recent filing in the election interference case against Donald Trump with 38% calling it both proper and damning. “It is not a prosecutor's job to avoid influencing elections, it is his mission to convict the guilty, without regard to politics. So I ask you, could any middle-of-the-road person think he is not guilty?” one respondent said.

Have a nice day.

Tyler Wilfong was born with a genetic eye disease, retinitis pigmentosa, that caused his eyesight to deteriorate. By the time he turned 23, he was no longer able to drive or even walk through a store unassisted due to his blindness. Then, he learned about a new treatment available through Duke Eye Center that could dramatically improve his eyesight. The treatment entails injecting a healthy copy of a gene into Wilfong’s eyes to combat a mutation that renders the existing gene non-functional. The first application in one eye has proved effective, and Wilfong plans to receive treatment in his other eye this fall. With just the first eye treated, Wilfong is already able to see and care for his newborn son. CBS17 has the story.

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