How Musk and Trump Put Their Differences Aside

It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, not so long ago they didn’t like each other that much.

“I don’t hate the man,” Elon Musk tweeted in July 2022, “but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail off into the sunset.”

The Tesla and Space X founder’s comment was prompted by a gross insult from Donald Trump — simply put, calling Musk a liar. Trump accused Musk of lying to him about who he voted for in the last presidential election.

“Elon is not going to buy Twitter,” Trump shouted to a crowd in Alaska.

Musk, of course, bought Twitter a few months later—and went on to endorse Trump’s Republican archrival Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor even kicked off his presidential campaign with a glitchy Twitter Spaces chat.

But in recent months, the relationship between Musk and Trump has not only thawed, but has also reached a positively warm and stable simmer.

On Monday, Trump returned to Twitter/X after a year-long absence, hours before he and Musk were set to reunite for what many expect to be a cozy chat streamed on the platform.

Both men hope the conversation will reach an audience beyond the hyperactive, paying users who dominate discussion of X today, and that the conversation will be free of the technical glitches that bedeviled DeSantis’ failed campaign.

The relationship between the tech mogul and the Republican candidate has been in the making for some time.

Blue to red

Musk, who became a US citizen in 2002, has said he voted almost exclusively Democratic for decades.

But he has soured on President Biden over issues including unions — Musk opposes efforts to organize his autoworkers — and a snub. He was not invited to the 2021 White House electric vehicle summit, despite Tesla’s status as one of the world’s largest EV makers.

Under the Biden administration, Musk’s companies have also faced a number of federal investigations into personnel practices, his acquisition of Twitter and allegations about Tesla’s autopilot feature.

In November 2023, he told a New York Times interviewer that he would not vote for Biden again, but he did not endorse Trump, saying, “This is definitely a tough choice.”

Musk lifted the ban on the former president’s Twitter account after buying the company.

And perhaps more importantly, during his tenure, he has increasingly delved into issues that closely align with Trump’s campaign: government censorship and prosecution, complaints about the media, opposition to immigration and anger over “woke” ideas.

“He’s an attention-seeker and a political chameleon,” said Ryan Broderick, who writes the internet culture newsletter Garbage Day.

According to Broderick, Musk’s online messaging changed dramatically a few years ago.

“He was tweeting neoliberal, carefree stuff and pride flags and stuff until about 2018, but then there was quite a change,” he said.

Since Musk took over Twitter, he has increasingly waded into political controversies and spread inflammatory — and sometimes downright fake — news stories.

During the recent riots in the UK, he clashed with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, claiming that a “civil war was inevitable” and sharing a fake story about “detention camps” in the Falkland Islands.

He also believed Trump’s claims — unsupported by evidence — that election fraud is widespread in the US.

Research from the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an organization that tried to sue Musk earlier this year in a case that was dismissed, found that Musk has tweeted false or misleading claims about voting behavior 50 times so far this year.

In addition, he regularly communicates with radical, far-right figures and pro-Trump accounts on his own platform, expanding their reach.

Trump’s technology fans

At the same time, his Silicon Valley connections link him to Trump’s inner circle. Musk was a member of the so-called PayPal mafia — stakeholders who made fortunes when the payments processor was bought for $1.5 billion and who later became prolific investors and company founders.

PayPal founder Peter Thiel is an influential Republican who later hired JD Vance at his venture capital firm Mithril Capital Management and then funded his campaign for Ohio Senate with a $10 million donation.

In March, Musk met Trump at his Florida resort. A few months later, Musk hosted an “anti-Biden” dinner party, where guests included Thiel and Rupert Murdoch, according to US news reports.

Musk has donated to both Democratic and Republican politicians in the past. But while he insists he is not donating directly to a presidential campaign, he recently launched a pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC.

Political action groups have the freedom to spend huge sums of money in support of candidates and causes. However, Musk has said that reports that he will contribute $45 million a month to the PAC are exaggerated.

Yet his support for Trump was fully assured just minutes after the attempted assassination of the former president, when he wrote on Twitter: “I fully support President Trump and hope for his speedy recovery.”

Trump appears to have patched things up with Musk. At a press conference on Thursday, he said, “I have a lot of respect for Elon. He has a lot of respect for me.”

“Elon loves this country more than anyone I know, he loves the concept of this country, but like me, he says this country is in terrible trouble, it’s in terrible danger,” Trump said.

Musk has become a hero to an online group of young, mostly male supporters who may support Trump’s ideas but are reportedly less reliable voters.

It appears that Trump’s campaign is targeting that segment of the population.

For example, the former president recently interviewed “edgy” podcaster Adin Ross, who has been repeatedly banned from the streaming site Twitch for violating the site’s code of conduct.

“Donald Trump is struggling because he’s looking for a way to revitalize his campaign,” Broderick said. “He’s a showman, and he understands that Elon Musk has similar instincts.”

But he doubted whether the two would get along in real life.

“I assume they’ll talk to each other and it probably won’t do much good,” he said. “And maybe someone will say something crazy.”

The BBC has contacted X and the Trump campaign for comment.

The interview is expected to be released online at 8pm ET (1am BST) on Monday.

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