Elon Musk says he plans to vote Republican for the first time
Billionaire called Twitter takeover a win for ‘moderates’
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Your support makes all the difference.Elon Musk has compared US President Joe Biden to Anchorman and said he will vote Republican in “this election” despite historically being a Democrat voter.
The billionaire tech founder said Mr Biden was like Anchorman’s Ron Burgundy – who loses his job as a newsreader because he lacks the ability to improvise – during the All-in tech conference in Miami on Monday.
“The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter. The path to power is the path to the teleprompter,” Mr Musk told the conference via Zoom.
“I do feel like if somebody were to accidentally lean on the teleprompter, it’s going to be like Anchorman.”
The world’s alleged richest man continued by attacking Mr Biden’s support for unions and said the Democrat’s administration seemed less able than its predecessor to “get a lot done”.
“He is simply too much captured by the unions, which was not the case with Obama,” said Mr Musk, who did not make clear what was not getting “done”.
Although he voted “overwhelmingly” for Democrats in past elections, Mr Musk said he would not be for “this election” and that Republicans would have his vote.
“I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically,” Mr Musk said. “Like I’m not sure, I might never have voted for a Republican, just to be clear. Now this election I will”.
He did not make clear if he was referring to this years midterms in November, or the next presidential election in 2024, Insider reported on Tuesday.
The SpaceX founder and Tesla CEO went on to label Twitter as “very far left”. He is attempting to buy the platform for $44bn (£35bn).
Mr Musk said it would not be “some right-wing takeover as people on the left may fear” but a “moderate wing takeover” which created a “digital town square”.
The billionaire said people on the social media site would also be able to speak more freely “without fear of being banned or shadow-banned,” under his ownership.
Mr Musk has previously complained about the social media platform limiting “free speech” and said he would allow former US president Donald Trump back on the site.
On Tuesday, Musk said he would not move forward with buying Twitter however if the company could not prove spam bot accounts make up less than five per cent of its total users.
It came after he suggested he would buy the company at a lower price than had already been agreed, and sent a poo emoji to Twitter’s CEO. Negoations are ongoing.
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