Washington, DC, USA (Netafsen): Tesla founder Elon Musk is increasing his financial support for Donald Trump's election campaign.
Recently, Musk's America PAC announced that it would pay for locating Republican voters in seven US swing states.
In a kind of recruitment campaign, Musk is promising to pay $47, equivalent to 505 Norwegian kroner at today's exchange rate, per signature to anyone who gets registered voters to sign a petition supporting the Republicans. The appeal was also sent among Musk's 200 million followers on X, his wholly owned communication channel.
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This fall's election is about becoming the 47th president of the United States, and hence the size of the office.
According to the New York Times, those who sign the agreement will be followed by Musk's so-called Super PAC to ensure they vote for Trump. The goal is to get one million voters in swing states to sign. If the organization achieves this goal, it means that Musk will have to shell out $47 million – roughly half a billion Norwegian kroner.
This comes in addition to money he has already pledged to Trump's campaign. In July, the Tesla founder explained that he would donate about $45 million per month until the elections in November. This equates to approximately NOK 485 million.
Dark Maja
While pop star Taylor Swift finally publicly announced her support for Kamala Harris after the presidential candidates' debate in September, her rival Donald Trump is being cheered on the other hand. Because on July 13 of this year, shortly after the attempt on Trump's life during a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, Musk wrote on the X website that he was offering his full support to the Republican presidential candidate.
When Trump held another campaign rally at the site of Butler's assassination last weekend, the billionaire was one of those who came out on stage to speak.
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Wearing a black hat that said, “Make America Great Again,” he said:
– You see, I'm not just Maga. I am the dark maga.
Musk's now emergence as a staunch Trump supporter may seem surprising to anyone who remembers that he once supported Barack Obama's election campaign. But since the early 2000s, he has been supporting both sides of American politics, albeit in slightly different amounts than he is currently pumping into Trump's campaign.
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“Embarrassed” by Trump
A summary from Forbes magazine shows that the Tesla founder donated $2,000 to both former President George W. Bush and his rival, Democratic candidate John Kerry, in 2003 and 2004, respectively.
Three years later, he provided $25,000 to secure more Republican representatives in the US Congress. But during the 2008 primaries, he financially supported both Obama and Hillary Clinton. In 2011, he donated nearly $67,000 to Obama and the Democrats.
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The billionaire then gave Clinton $5,000 during her 2015 presidential campaign, while speaking warmly about her in public.
However, in 2015, Musk told Vanity Fair that he tried to stay out of politics. He even expressed doubts about his current preferred candidate, saying it would be embarrassing if Trump became the Republican Party's presidential nominee.
Violent argument
But as of 2017, Musk has supported Republicans more financially than Democrats, although there are differences. He donated about $90,000 to Republicans, despite the fact that in the same year the tech billionaire resigned from his position as an advisor to Trump in protest of the latter's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement.
In 2020, Musk said he would vote for Joe Biden. However, he did not financially support any of the presidential candidates. In 2022, Musk and Trump had a heated argument, when Trump believed Twitter was worthless and mocked Musk's other investments.
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For his part, Musk said that Trump should not run for president again, but rather “sail into the sunset.”
Despite the insults, later that year, Twitter's new owner urged American voters to vote Republican.
We disagree about trade unions
One reason was that Biden supported unionizing employees at auto plants in the United States, and wanted to offer more favorable terms to auto manufacturers who had unionized workers. Musk is known to oppose employee regulation.
After that, the relationship between Democrats and Musk became tense.
And so last weekend Malik X stood on stage in Pennsylvania and cheered on the 78-year-old former president.
The same candidate who has criticized electric cars several times in the past, and who wants to eliminate the tax break for electric car buyers — but is now clearly in favor of electric cars, and has promised Musk a significant role in his administration.
“Organizer. Social media geek. General communicator. Bacon scholar. Proud pop culture trailblazer.”