The history of Musk's relationship with former President Trump may be, maybe it doesn't matter now. He's endorsed Trump publicly through the platform Max. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Elon Musk in 2016 did kind of start to drift towards Trump. I mean, he was initially on a couple of these executive councils and then broke with the former president over the Paris climate accord. But what we've seen over the last five or so years is a thawing of those relations, even as they've insulted each other, you know, often publicly. There has been a cooling and definitely an ideological convergence. When you look at sort of what Iwan Musk is saying on his, you know, X page and what the former president is saying on the campaign trail, there are a lot of commonalities. And on top of that, of course, you are. Musk has what I'd say is a pretty bad relationship with the Biden

administration.
Right. You have multiple federal agencies
investigating various aspects of his business.
Elon Musk has had all sorts of extremely negative things to say about the current
president. So you can see a lot of reasons why they
would be able to find common ground. And of course, until recently, President
Trump's former President Trump's finances have started to look a lot
better. But until recently, he really needed
money. So.
So they both kind of need each other. And I think that's what we're seeing
when you go to that, you know, musk needing each other and needing Trump or
indeed anyone who's in the White House. Remind us of the government contracts
that Elon Musk basically sits atop of. Yeah.
So each one Musk is I mean, of course, he is known as an innovator, but he's
also been a very successful government contractor.
You know, many of his businesses, most

of much of his business depends on
relationships with the government, either in terms of direct contracts with
SpaceX, X, or Tesla. Of course, depends on these tax credits and has for the
entirety of its existence. So you can sort of see why he has an
interest. And of course, he's got a lot more plan.
Right. SpaceX is hoping to, you know, go to Mars. Wants to be involved that and if you look at the GOP platform, which
we're going to see at the convention, it does bring up commercial space Mars.
It brings up the fears of sort of the wokeness and or it implies that which is
another pet Elon Musk issue. On the other hand, president former
President Trump has said very negative things about the EV industry.
So so there is potential tension there as well.
Max, I wrote in my Hyperdrive newsletter last week about the idea of what happens
to public funding or IRA funds in the

event of the White House.
And no one I've spoken to would say if Trump wins the presidency, that would
just go away. But I just wanted to remind our audience
of The New York Times reporting from earlier this year that Trump met with
oil executives and basically said, If you help fund my campaign, I will be,
let's say, less supportive of EVs. So then we bring in Musk.
It doesn't really add up. Trump's historic attitude towards
electric vehicles and Musk and Tesla is the market incumbent, the company that
paved the way for electrification. Yeah, it's hard to know how to parse
that. And of course, what candidates say on
the campaign trail isn't necessarily what what ends up happening.
From from the sort of Musk point of view two points.
One is that I think Trump making those comments and then those comments leaking
could be read as a as a sort of blinking red, you know, orange light for somebody
like Elon Musk to donate.

It will be interesting to see if President Trump, former President Trump, softens his attitude to the industry. The second thing is that Tesla is the market leader. It doesn't necessarily hurt the company. If the if the Trump if a hypothetical second Trump presidency, you know, kind of cracks down on the EV industry or gets rid of a lot of subsidies, it might even just sort of lock in Tesla's position. Now, that's not something you want to hear. If your interest is in growing the EV industry in a big way. But it's not clear that that's even Musk's goal at this point. Max Tompkins written so much, Caro, about the history of musk and politics. We just showed that graphic of some of the other names over the weekend that publicly endorsed officially endorsed President Trump. And for me, this is a big story. Kara, I find it so interesting, notable that people are now willingly taking to social platforms, many of them being a

prevalent user,
of Elon Musk's X as well. To make these sorts of endorsements and
statements has to be reflected in. Of course, many CEOs within technology
were coming out and condemning the violence that we saw this weekend as
well and using social platforms of which to do that.
But, Max, just a last take on ultimately whether we see more money weighing in
here and any clarity on the extent that we hear a veto must support, you know,
Silicon Valley entrepreneurs and CEOs and investors, they want to back
winners. So I don't think it's totally
surprising. You know, even before this assassination
attempt, Trump had had a very good couple of weeks.
So I don't think it's surprising that we're seeing the corporate money flow in
because that the way these guys think. Right.
Is they they want a voice in whichever they judge to be the likely winner.
So so I think that's part of what's

going on.
And it would not surprise me if we see more money from Silicon Valley.
And in fact, we could see you. One must take a potentially active role
here, either, you know, just on his platform or with know further donations.
We'll see. But but but nothing would surprise me at
this point as far as Musk and Trump coming closer together.

Musk Donates to Trump, Tapping Fortune to Swing 2024 Race

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