Why Elon Musk is hijacking Trump’s campaign

Elon Musk, the world’s richest person and self-proclaimed techno-king, makes a grand entry amid rock songs. He takes the stage, which has a large American flag at its centre, in a school auditorium in suburban Philadelphia. Large production cameras roll as Musk makes a long speech peppered with spectacles. To a bystander, who did not know what was happening in US politics, it would look like Musk was a Presidential candidate.

Elon Musk isn’t the presidential candidate. He cannot be.

Musk was not born in the US, a basic criterion for contesting the American presidential polls. If he can’t be the President or the presidential candidate, why is Musk at the centre of Republican candidate Donald Trump’s rallies?

While he cannot be the President, he has taken up the role of a king-maker. He is spending time, energy and all possible resources on the Trump campaign. He has invested over $75 million in it. If Trump wins, Musk will become the most important part of his government.

At a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Musk kept jumping on the stage even as Trump spoke. While Trump was at the front, Musk had taken the centrestage.

In all probability, it is not just about being the most important part of Trump’s ministry if the Republican leader returns to the White House.

Almost two weeks before the US elections, the Republican candidate, Trump, is currently in a tie with the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris, in all battleground states, according to several polls.

While Musk cannot direct his wealth and turn it into a presidential ticket in US elections. He is turning his wealth into a ticket for power through Trump. And may be planning even beyond.

“Musk is the one poised to live out the ultimate techno-authoritarian fantasy. With his influence, he stands to capture the state, not just to enrich himself. His entanglement with Trump will be an Ayn Rand novel sprung to life,” The Atlantic said in one of its reports.

It also said that Musk would be the “master engineer” of the Trump government who “redesigns the American state—and therefore American life—in his own image”.

‘NOT MAGA, DARK MAGA’ ELON MUSK

This is also reflected in how combatively Musk is campaigning for Trump.

Now, he is even handing over $1 million every day to voters in seven swing states, including those in Pennsylvania, Georgia and Nevada.

Musk believes Pennsylvania to be a “lynchpin state” in Trump’s bid for the Presidency, reports The New York Times.

Musk has shifted to Pennsylvania now to oversee Trump’s campaign. This is similar to how he handled a crisis in Tesla, where he slept on the couch in the office till the crisis was over.

Both Trump and Musk even rallied together in early October in Butler, Pennsylvania, where the Republican candidate survived an assassination attempt. Musk, took to the stage in a black “Make America Great Again” hat and called himself “not just MAGA, I’m dark MAGA”.

His campaign continued in Harrisburg in Pennsylvania last week.

But things didn’t begin this way.

Musk wasn’t always a Republican right, and contributed to Democrat Barack Obama’s campaign. Trump at one point had called Musk a “bullshit artist”.

Musk, on the other hand, said Trump “doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States.”

But this turn of Musk and Trump comes from their mutual benefit from this alliance.

“He’s a very smart guy. I certainly would, if he would do it, I certainly would. He’s a brilliant guy,” Trump said in August when asked if he was considering Musk for an advisory role or Cabinet job.

If Trump wins, Musk will hold an important place in the federal government and Trump is benefitting immensely from the support of the world’s richest man, who also knows how to garner media and social media attention.

This is not to say, Musk does not already hold immense power over the US federal government.

But he is yet to turn the American government into his own “profit centre”, reported The Atlantic.

His company, SpaceX, needs contracts from three-letter agencies and the Pentagon. Tesla depends on government tax credits for electric vehicles and subsidies for its charging stations.

These two companies have won $15 billion in federal contracts.

His SpaceX is an important factor in deciding Nasa’s rocket schedule. The Defence department also depends on him to get most of its satellites into orbit. Various Musk projects with 17 federal agencies were promised $3 billion last year, reported the NYT.

According to The Wall Street Journal, SpaceX is even building products for “national security customers in mind”.

HOW MUSK IS TURNING THE TIDE IN FAVOUR OF TRUMP

But a win for Trump will only get him more power.

In the school auditorium in Philadelphia, Musk walked to Brooks & Dunn’s ‘Only in America’ and spoke of the “future of America” and thereby of “civilisation” itself was at stake.

This was the first time Musk took his online support for Trump to the ground.

He was there to encourage voters in Pennsylvania to go all-in on voter registration and to convince their community and friends to do the same before the state’s last date.

But the event was as much about voting as it was about Musk.

He is now spending tens of millions of dollars to turn voters in favour of Trump across the US.

He has even said he might take a bus tour across Pennsylvania and will knock on the door personally to see how his money is being spent.

The now turned Trump supporter discussed his views on Trump and his vision for America. But he did not limit himself to it. He discussed the Israel-Hamas conflict, election technology, the Food and Drug Administration and the aftermath of the Second World War.

He did not even discuss Trump for several minutes.

A New York Times report even said that they were Musk fans and not of Trump.

Some people at the rally were his fans, others were from his school and one woman even sought a job for her son.

But there were pro-Trumpers and Musk fans too.

He even heard about a problem of a rally attender but, like a politician, he said, “let’s not get contentious”.

Musk has been in panic about what would happen to America if Trump did not win. This has to do with his own gains but also his vision of American history.

This involves his concern about “undocumented immigrants” to his concern about free elections in America.

Steve Davis, who was a SpaceX engineer, joined Musk as the head of his tunnelling company. This role is akin to the role of the “sidekick” he played in the Twitter takeover, reports NYT.

He is using his entrepreneurial lessons for Trump’s political campaign.

WHAT WILL MUSK REALLY GET IF TRUMP WINS?

Donald Trump has vowed to make Musk the head of the “government efficiency commission” with the authority to recommend wide cuts to federal agencies and even the right to change federal rules.

This will give Musk the power to regulate the regulators who hold sway over his companies.

This even came up when SpaceX had to seek permission to discharge large amounts of potentially polluted water from its centre in Texas. Musk said that this kind of process slows down SpaceX reaching Mars. “So long as it is not smothered by bureaucracy,” he wrote on X.

“The Department of Government Efficiency is the only path to extending life beyond Earth.”

In early October, he spoke up against the Federal Communications Commission, which checks the internet satellites that SpaceX launches. He suggested on X that if the commission hadn’t “illegally revoked” more than $886 million worth of federal funding the company had called for to get internet access to rural areas, satellite sets would “probably have saved lives in North Carolina” after a hurricane devastated parts of the state.

Even when he interviewed Trump, Musk brought this up a few times, but Trump did not get into it.

“I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and just ensures that the taxpayer money — the taxpayers’ hard-earned money — is spent in a good way,” said Musk. “And I’d be happy to help out on such a commission.”

“I’d love it,” Trump said ultimately. “Well, you, you’re the greatest cutter.”

If Musk gets a senior role in the administration, regulators might have to stay away from Musk’s companies.

Musk’s involvement is “unparalleled in modern history”.

The self-proclaimed “techno king” was, however, asked what he would do if Kamala Harris, and not Donald Trump, won.

He said he would accept the result and not be a “jackass” about it.

Here lies the message.

The validity of electoral results should not be questioned. But Musk asks the same of his opponents. Anyone who does not accept the result would be a “jackass” in the book of Elon Musk. And Musk would live another day for a bigger, deeper role in swaying America’s governance.