Elon Musk meets Trump as ex-president looks to boost his war chest, report says

Donald Trump reportedly met with billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk as he looks to secure further donors for his 2024 presidential bid.

The meeting between the former president and the Tesla boss, the second richest person on earth according to Bloomberg, and other Republican donors, occurred on Sunday in Palm Beach, Florida.

Three sources with knowledge of the meeting confirmed details to The New York Times.

It comes as Mr Trump was looking for a clean sweep of victories on Super Tuesday which would edge him closer to a rematch for the Oval Office with Joe Biden on 5 November.

According to the New York Times, the former president and his team are working to find additional major donors to shore up his finances as he heads into an expected general election against Mr Biden.

It is not yet clear whether Mr Musk plans to spend any money supporting Mr Trump, though his recent social media posts suggest he thinks that Mr Biden’s time in office should come to an end.

open image in gallery

The New York Times reported that people close to the tech boss confirmed that this is his personal view.

With a hefty spread of legal issues still ongoing, and following a recent fine of over $450m, Mr Trump is currently at a financial disadvantage to Mr Biden and his associates.

Mr Musk has long portrayed himself as “independent-minded” and a proponent of free speech – especially with his acquisition of social media platform X, formerly Twitter – and, like many business leaders, has donated to candidates from both parties over the years.

However, unlike other US billionaires, he has not spent heavily on a presidential election, and his donations have been fairly evenly split over the years between Democrats and Republicans.

His businesses, Tesla and SpaceX, have benefited from federal government contracts and subsidies.

The relationship between Mr Trump and Mr Musk has also seen its ups and downs, with the latter stepping away from two business advisory councils following Mr Trump’s decision to pull out of the Paris climate agreement.

open image in gallery

“Climate change is real,” Mr Musk posted on Twitter in June 2017. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.” The two have had other moments of friction.

But Mr Musk has become more open about his preference for the Republican Party.

After buying Twitter in October 2022, Mr Musk reinstated Mr Trump’s account. The former president had been barred from the platform after the January 6 attack on the Capitol – a decision that Mr Musk had previously suggested was a mistake.

In addition the tech boss has railed against what he describes as the left’s “woke” agenda and has attacked Mr Biden over the record number of migrants who have entered the United States during his presidency, sometimes on X.

His comments about immigration have grown increasingly alarmist, with posts appearing to suggest that Democrats are “ushering in vast numbers of illegals” to cheat in elections. There is no evidence to support his claim of mass voter fraud.

“America will fall if it tries to absorb the world,” Mr Musk posted on X on Tuesday. Earlier in the day, he posted that the Biden administration’s immigration policies amounted to “treason.”