Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Wednesday that he won’t donate any money to candidates in the 2024 election, including former President Donald Trump or President Joe Biden.
It came amid reports that Mr. Musk visited President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida, and held discussions there. Anonymously sourced reports alleged that he met with the former president last weekend along with other GOP donors, although few details were provided. Reports claimed that the former president was seeking donations due to low cash reserves.
“Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President,” Mr. Musk, one of the wealthiest men in the world, wrote in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
He did not mention either candidate by name, and he also did not comment on reports that he met with President Trump. As for the former president, he also has not publicly commented on the matter.
Notably, Mr. Musk has not made many political donations to candidates over the years, according to reports. He made a handful of contributions to 2018 midterm candidates, both Republican and Democrat.
He has long sought to cast himself as politically independent and has reportedly split donations fairly evenly between Democrats and Republicans over the years. Reports have said that he donated to former President George W. Bush in 2004 and to the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2007. He also donated to former President Barack Obama’s campaign years later.
However, the SpaceX owner could donate to President Trump or another candidate through different avenues, including providing funds to a political action committee that backs either candidate.
With a net worth that Forbes magazine has put at about $200 billion, Mr. Musk has the resources to almost single-handedly offset the huge financial advantage that President Biden and his supporters are otherwise expected to wield in the 2024 general election campaign.
Based on posts he’s made on X, Mr. Musk in recent months has aligned himself with Republican politicians on some key issues, including censorship, and illegal immigration. He has said he would back Republican Party candidates during the 2024 election. In 2022, he urged voters to cast their ballots for GOP candidates, while saying that he voted for President Biden in 20202.
He has also been a frequent critic of President Biden’s administration on different occasions, including one instance last October when he compared the president to the “corpse in ‘Weekend at Bernie’s,’” referring to two films made about 30 years ago that featured two characters who pretend their dead boss is alive.
Earlier this year, Mr. Musk wrote on X that he believes President Biden and the Democrats are using illegal immigrants to cast ballots in favor of Democratic candidates in the next election. He has also targeted left-wing diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) training and policies, labeling them as extremist and writing, “DEI must DIE.”
After taking over Twitter in 2022, Mr. Musk reinstated the accounts of several users, including that of President Trump, which the platform had suspended in January 2021. However, the former president has not made any posts on the platform since, except when his mugshot was taken last year in Fulton County, Georgia, where he faced charges related to several election-related violations.
President Trump won 14 of 15 states during the Super Tuesday election contest, while his nearest rival Nikki Haley only won in Vermont. President Biden secured victories in every single state. It effectively means that there will be a Trump-Biden rematch in 2024.
Aside from the campaign, the former president is fighting against four separate criminal cases in Georgia, New York, Florida, and Washington. He has pleaded not guilty to all the charges, saying he’s the target of political persecution at the hands of Democrats.
But the cases could be draining his reserves. An analysis of recent Federal Election Commission filings suggests that President Trump’s fundraising apparatus has paid $54 million in legal fees over the past two years.
Other than the criminal charges, he has faced multiple civil cases in New York. Last month, a judge in New York City ruled that he must pay a $355 million fine after he determined that The Trump Organization willingly defrauded investors and banks, which the former president has denied.
A legal scholar noted, however, that because President Trump is a good fundraiser, it’s unlikely his campaign will run out of cash.
Richard Briffault, a professor at Columbia Law School in New York City, who specializes in campaign finance regulation, told The Associated Press in February that “he seems to be able to raise a lot of money, so I wouldn’t really worry about the long term impact on his campaign.”
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
