Elon Musk Will Not Fund Candidates After Meeting Donald Trump

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has denied he will financially back either of the two mainstream candidates running for US President.

Elon Musk in a tweet on Wednesday said he is not donating to either Joe Biden’s or Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns.

It comes after the New York Times reported on Tuesday that Elon Musk had met with Donald Trump in Palm Beach, Florida at the weekend, as the Trump campaign seeks to raise money to close a funding gap with the Biden campaign.

Funding need

Donald Trump’s home is his Mar-a-Lago club, which is in Palm Beach.

According to the NYT article, Trump met with Musk and a number of wealthy Republican donors on Sunday, and hopes to have a one-on-one discussion soon with Musk.

And it should be noted that Musk met with Biden administration officials on 13 September 2023 at the White House, but did not meet US President Joe Biden.

Musk is currently engaged in at least 11 regulatory battles with the Biden administration and federal agencies.

Elon Musk of course is one of the world’s richest people with a Forbes rated fortune of $195 billion.

Meanwhile the personal fortune of Donald Trump has been hammered recently from two court judgements against him – one in a New York civil fraud case, and other in a separate defamation trial.

Last month a judge in New York had found the former US president liable for conspiring to manipulate his net worth and ordered Trump to pay a penalty of nearly $355 million plus interest.

On Tuesday Donald Trump’s attorneys filed a motion for a new trial in writer E. Jean Carroll’s defamation case and asked a judge to substantially reduce the judgement of $83.3 million against the former president.

Consequentially, the Trump campaign is aiming to line up additional major contributors to his campaign for president, the NYT article reported.

Not donating

Musk however has denied he is donating to either Trump or Biden.

“Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President,” he tweeted on Wednesday.

Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 6, 2024

That said, Musk could potential could support Trump or Biden in other ways, for example by donating to a political committee that is backing either contender.

Musk has previously stated he preferred to avoid politics, but in 2022 he stated that he had previously voted for Democrats, but has now started to vote Republican.

In recent months Musk has begun to regularly circulate far-right conspiracy theories related to the Biden administration on X (formerly Twitter).

Musk also hosted Florida Govenor Ron DeSantis to announce his presidential campaign on X.

Shortly after Musk’s takeover in late October 2022, Twitter reinstated Donald Trump’s accounts, after an online poll conducted by Elon Musk came out narrowly in favour of the move.

Trump’s sole post on his Twitter account since then has been a picture of mugshot in August 2023, after he was booked on 13 charges due to his efforts to reverse Georgia’s 2020 election results – charges that include racketeering, conspiracy, and soliciting a public official to violate their oath of office.