Musk's Trump Endorsement: Good for Trump, Bad for Tesla?

Over the past few months, Elon Musk has used his latest acquisition X (formerly known as Twitter) mostly to campaign for Donald Trump’s third presidential bid. And he’s not only done so in the “traditional” way of endorsing Trump or donating to his campaign, Musk went much further then that.

In recent weeks, Musk has constantly been amplifying some of Trump’s main talking points – uncontrolled mass immigration, alleged importation of voters, crooked mainstream media, anti-wokeness – by retweeting, in many cases, unchecked reports to his 200 million followers and validating them by adding comments like “will look into this”, “worrying” or simply “wow”.

In a final push towards the November 5 election, Musk even promised to give away $1 million each day to registered voters who sign a petition supporting free speech and the right to bear arms – a stunt that many think is against the law or at least against the spirit of it. Federal law prohibits paying people to register to vote, and while Musk only requires people to sign a petition to be eligible for his million-dollar sweepstakes, they must be registered voters to do so.

According to a recent YouGov poll, Americans have mixed feelings about Musk going all in on Trump 2024. While 46 percent of U.S. adults think that his support will help Trump’s campaign, there’s a chance that it will hurt Musk’s businesses in the long run. YouGov found that 30 percent of respondents said that Musk endorsing Trump makes it less likely for them to use his products or services. Ironically, the Tesla CEO’s political views are likely to rub exactly those people the wrong way that made the electric car maker what it is today: progressives and early EV adopters who used to admire Musk for his work to protect the environment.