Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk listens to President Donald Trump during a meeting with business leaders in the State Dining Room of the White House in Washington, February 3, 2017.
Evan Vucci | AP
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Former President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated keynote address bitcoin the gathering of the year started an hour late.
As the crowd of investors, enthusiasts and crypto-curiosities grew restless at the Bitcoin conference in Nashville, Elon Musk’s private jet touched down 200 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee.
It was July 27, just two weeks after Trump had survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. Hours later, it was publicly approved from Tesla CEO for a second term.
Inside Nashville’s Music City Center, rumors swirled all week that Musk would make a surprise appearance at the conference and perhaps even set up a conversation with Trump.
Musk was not seen, but he was very much present.
“I love Elon. He’s great,” Trump told the crowd. “He approved me and a lot of support and everything, but not everyone needs to have an electric car.”
But Trump’s comments in Nashville were significantly toned down from what he had said about Musk just a week earlier at a rally in Michigan.
“I love Elon Musk … we’ve got to make life good for us smart people. And he’s as smart as you get,” Trump said at the time. “He’s giving me $45 million a month! Come on. Not $45 million. He’s giving me $45 million one month.”
He continued, “I mean other guys, they give you $2 and you have to take them to lunch, you have to wine and dine them.”
So what happened between July 20 in Michigan and July 27 in Nashville to derail Trump’s praise? The answer seems simple: On July 22, Musk denied the extent of the promise.
“What has been reported in the media is simply not true,” Musk told podcaster Jordan Peterson. “I’m not donating $45 million a month to Trump.” In a July 25 post on X, the social media company he owns, Musk said he was donating to a political action committee that supports Trump “but at a much lower level.”
The relationship between Musk, the world’s richest man, and Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, is as volatile as the characters themselves. Over the years, they’ve poked fun at each other, talked over each other, and taken opposing sides on key issues. But lately, they’ve emerged as parallel heroes of the far right, a group that includes a healthy dose of cryptocurrency enthusiasts and is united in a single quest: defeating the Democrats in 2024.
How far Musk is willing to go to financially support Trump in his campaign, now against Vice President Kamala Harris, is another matter. Musk created a super PAC called America PAC days after Trump’s endorsement, but it’s unclear how much money it has contributed, and the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office said Monday it is monitoring the group after it complained it collected personal data while fails to promise to help users register to vote.
The Federal Election Commission’s website shows limited financial contributions from America PAC. Federal filing list total disbursements $7.78 million from April 1 to June 30, mostly for two transactions: $3.87 million for “supporting” Trump and the same amount for “opposing” President Joe Biden.
Based on Trump’s comments on social media, more about their relationship may be coming soon. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday that the two will speak publicly next week.
“MONDAY NIGHT I’LL BE DOING A HUGE INTERVIEW WITH ELON MASKS — Details to come!” Trump wrote.
Musk did not respond to a request for comment for this story. Steven Cheung, communications director for the Trump presidential campaign, said in an email: “Stay tuned! Very exciting stuff!”
“I don’t hate the man”
As recently as 2022, Musk and Trump were locked in one open antagonism, publicly insulting each other on social media, at political rallies and elsewhere.
“I don’t hate the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail off into the sunset,” Musk wrote in a social media post in 2022.
That same year, Trump called Musk a “bull—- artist,” claiming that the CTO had privately told him he had voted for him.
What had become clear was that Musk was not going to support Biden’s re-election.
Musk said he had voted for Biden in 2020, but the following year the president left Musk out of a White House EV summit where he met with top executives from General Motors, Passage and Stellandis. Musk wrote in a tweet“Yeah, it seems strange that Tesla wasn’t invited.”
Biden is a pro-worker president, while Tesla is non-union and has violated federal labor laws.
By 2022, Musk indicated he was leaning toward Ron DeSandis, the Republican governor of Florida, as chatter about a 2024 election grew. DeSantis ended up launching his presidential campaign in a May 2023 live stream on X, which Musk owns. The stream with Musk and longtime friend David Sacks was a technical disaster, plagued by glitches. DeSantis’ campaign ended and officially ended in January.
Two months later, Musk reportedly headed to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida as Trump sought to drum up donor support. In an interview on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on March 11, Trump spoke positively of Musk, saying he was “friendly with him over the years,” “helped” him when he was president and that he “liked him.”
“We obviously have opposing views on a secondary issue called electric cars,” Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen. “I’m in favor of electric cars, but you have to have all the alternatives,” he said, adding that electric cars “cost too much and everything will be made in China.”
Whatever differences the two may have on EVs, they are increasingly aligned politically. Both have described Harris as a communist and are prone to attacking everything about DEI — diversity, equality and inclusion. They are voices in opposition to transgender rights. Both have spread false reports of non-citizens voting in US elections.
Former Ford CEO Mark Fields said it’s not just politics for Musk. Between his various companies — Tesla, aerospace and defense company SpaceX, social media company X and AI startup xAI — Musk has several projects that could use the White House’s help.
“The bottom line, a positive relationship with the president has a lot of benefits, not just potentially for Tesla, for things like autonomy or artificial intelligence or robotics, but also his other businesses like SpaceX,” Fields said in an interview. in July with CNBC’s Brian. Sullivan. “You can say to the president, ‘Hey, you know Boeing are convicted felons, so give me the majority of your business.’
Trump also said he would impose steep tariffs on goods from China, a market where Tesla faces increasing competition.
Musk “knows he can take a tougher stance against China and that can help them in the U.S. because that’s one of their biggest and most profitable markets,” Fields said.
‘I have no choice’
Since winning Musk’s endorsement, Trump has returned the praise.
“I think what he’s done is great,” Trump said at the Bitcoin conference.
On Saturday in Atlanta, Trump continued with that theme, telling the audience that he was “for electric cars”. He added, “I have to be, you know, because Elon has been very supportive of me. So, I have no other choice.”
Musk, meanwhile, has been moving to the right politically for years, and not just in the US. He has developed relationships with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Argentine President Javier Milei, former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and in July visited Capitol Hill as a guest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who delivered a speech to Congress about the war in Gaza.
Despite his vocal support of Trump, Musk appears to have stuck to his pledge not to donate directly to candidates this election cycle, instead going the PAC route.
US Vice President Kamala Harris disembarks Air Force Two after a campaign trip to Wisconsin at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland, US, July 23, 2024.
Kevin Mohatt | Reuters
Instead, Musk uses X to promote his preferred candidate to his 193 million followers.
On the day of Trump’s speech in Nashville, Musk He wrote “Save our children!” along with a video of Trump in West Palm Beach, Florida, where he said he would sign an executive order to cut federal school funding by “pushing critical race theory” and “transgender insanity.”
And then there was Musk’s retweet of a parody Kamala Harris campaign ad. The video has a voiceover that sounds like Harris saying she was chosen because she’s “the ultimate diversity recruit.” The video was not labeled as misleading, which appears to be a violation of the platform’s rules.
While Trump has his share of tech support, far outstripping Musk, many in the industry are quickly rallying around Harris. As of this week, more than 750 people in and around venture capital have signed the “VCs for Kamala” pledge, which was first announced on July 31.
In an op-ed in the Financial Times on Monday, legendary entrepreneur Mike Moritz took aim at Trump supporters in Silicon Valley and said they were “making a big mistake.”
“I suspect they are being seduced by the idea that because of their means they will be able to control Trump,” Moritz wrote. “And, I imagine they’re also making another basic mistake: delusions that he won’t do what he says or promises.”
— CNBC’s Brian Schwartz and Christina Wilkie contributed to this report.
