CNN
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Elon Musk has sought to build up political capital commensurate together with his extravagant wealth. Up to now 12 months, Musk has publicly opined on global conflicts, met with numerous world leaders and US senators to debate synthetic intelligence and his area and satellite tv for pc applied sciences. And he has courted senior Chinese officials on their dwelling turf.
Now he’s reportedly exploring what may very well be his subsequent political venture: Changing into an adviser to Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for president, in accordance with a report from the Wall Street Journal.
Musk has mentioned advising Trump ought to he win the 2024 election, the Journal reported, citing unnamed sources. Musk known as Trump straight through cellphone to discover a job that would probably give Musk vital affect over US insurance policies. It’s not clear primarily based on the Journal’s reporting which get together initiated conversations in regards to the potential function.
Musk and the Trump marketing campaign didn’t reply to CNN’s requests for remark; Musk additionally didn’t reply to the Wall Road Journal, however Brian Hughes, a Trump marketing campaign spokesperson, advised the outlet: “President Trump would be the solely voice of what function a person performs in his presidency.”
The potential place may develop upon the function that Musk performed within the earlier Trump administration, when he served on two enterprise advisory councils before quitting them over Trump’s resolution to drag out of the Paris local weather settlement.
The privilege of whispering in Trump’s ear, ought to he win reelection, may give the billionaire – who’s more and more steeped within the rhetoric and imagery of the conservative tradition wars – much more energy on the worldwide stage. Reporting that Musk and Trump’s relationship has improved comes after Musk’s politics have turn out to be extra aligned with Trump’s.
Musk has made supporting right-wing causes — and extremism, in some conditions — more and more central to his id. He has vocally opposed Covid-19 lockdowns and embraced anti-vaccine ideology. He has elevated conservative speech on X, the platform previously generally known as Twitter that he purchased in 2022. And he has pushed racist conspiracy theories about immigration.
Musk has additionally obsessed over the “woke thoughts virus,” a time period utilized by some conservatives to explain progressive causes. And he has explicitly known as for Republican victories on the poll field, warning of the nation’s impending “doom” if a “pink wave” doesn’t materialize in November.
A extra formal alliance with Trump would mark the fruits of Musk’s lengthy, winding quest for political relevance — and will significantly profit his empire of corporations that rely upon authorities help.
Musk’s numerous companies, most notably SpaceX and Tesla, profit from direct authorities contracts and federal subsidies. Their fortunes can rise or fall primarily based on US insurance policies governing vitality, electrical autos and the economic system writ giant.
For Musk to have a direct, non-public line to a future President Trump “would appear to be a blatant battle of curiosity,” stated Darrell West, a senior fellow within the governance research program on the Brookings Establishment.
The US authorities routinely solicits suggestions from the non-public sector, and presidents have up to now solicited recommendation from CEOs and even appointed enterprise leaders to cabinet-level positions. However these are official roles that require authorities officers to place their holdings in blind trusts.
Much less official roles for enterprise leaders are sometimes organized by councils comparable to those Musk participated in beforehand. In these advisory councils, dozens of stakeholders are invited to weigh in; they regularly contain rivals or rivals and the proceedings are comparatively clear, West stated.
Musk’s potential association with Trump may very well be problematic due to the mixture of private enterprise pursuits with unique entry, the place the affect may very well be boundless and resistant to any scrutiny, West added.
Moreover, Musk and his corporations are at present the goal of a number of federal investigations — by the Securities and Trade Fee, the Federal Commerce Fee, the Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration and the Justice Division, to call a couple of. Musk and his corporations have repeatedly gone to courtroom to problem points of these probes, however they’ve largely been rebuffed.
It will be egregious if Trump intervened to halt or delay any of those investigations, however even the notion of improper affect could be extremely damaging, West stated.
“It destroys the rule of legislation if a businessperson can lower a cope with a president to guard his personal enterprise pursuits,” West stated. “The entire level of capitalism is truthful play and folks not having particular benefits, and there’s a danger that we lose that profit.”
In the meantime, Musk’s views on social points might not essentially sway Trump in a unique path, given how a lot they appear to overlap, however the billionaire’s penchant for excessive rhetoric may give Trump political cowl for controversial motion as president.
Musk’s administration of Twitter — now generally known as X — displays his personal lurch to the precise.
One in all Musk’s first strikes after shopping for Twitter in 2022 was to reinstate Donald Trump’s account, after the previous president was suspended for incitement following the January 6, 2021, assault on the US Capitol.
Since then, Musk has stopped in need of utilizing his broadly adopted X account to endorse a particular US presidential candidate and said in a March post that he didn’t plan to donate cash to “both candidate for US President.” However he has repeatedly criticized Biden. This week, he has routinely railed towards his insurance policies on the US-Mexico border and immigration.
The billionaire has used his platform to raise right-leaning political candidates, together with hosting the presidential campaign launch for Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, who later dropped out of the race, in addition to a livestream discussion with third-party hopeful Robert Kennedy, Jr.
Musk has additionally repeatedly amplified on X fringe conspiracy theories in style in excessive right-wing areas on-line, together with a baseless claim about the attack on Paul Pelosi, the anti-Hillary Clinton conspiracy theory generally known as “Pizzagate,” and an antisemitic conspiracy theory usually espoused by hate teams (the latter of which Musk later apologized for).
His personal posts apart, a lot of Musk’s modifications to X have additionally contributed to a rightward shift within the platform’s tradition.
He reinstated the suspended accounts of White supremacists and conspiracy theorists, saying on the time he was responding to the wishes of platform users who expressed their opinions by an unscientific ballot Musk posted from his account. X additionally made it simpler for politicians and political candidates to qualify for newsworthiness exemptions from Twitter’s guidelines, once they would in any other case have had their content material restricted or eliminated.
Underneath Musk’s management, X allowed customers to buy blue “verification” checkmarks, adjusted its algorithm to spice up the posts of these subscribers and commenced paying verified customers a portion of the advert income their posts generate primarily based on their reputation. Most of the customers prepared to spend $8 per thirty days for a checkmark are those that are ideologically aligned with the billionaire – whose views are actually elevated on the platform.
In some circumstances, the coverage shift seems to incentivize problematic conduct: the extra excessive or outlandish a put up is, the extra possible it’s to generate vital engagement and due to this fact the extra possible the poster is to obtain significant advert income share {dollars} in the event that they’ve paid for a blue verify.
Musk’s modifications to X have helped “the rising normalization of hate and lies which may solely be damaging to democracies which are primarily based on compromise, tolerance, science, and fact,” stated Imran Ahmed, CEO of the net watchdog Heart for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH).
X sued CCDH final 12 months for allegedly making an attempt to drive away advertisers by publishing reviews crucial of the platform’s response to hateful content material; CCDH gained in March, when a federal choose threw out the case and excoriated X for making an attempt to silence the group beneath a mountain of litigation.
Biden aides told Politico final 12 months that the President’s marketing campaign considered X as an more and more hostile platform, though there have been no plans to cease posting there.
– CNN’s Donie O’Sullivan contributed to this report.