the essential
Elon Musk's energetic support for Donald Trump is less a matter of conviction than settling personal scores with his former friends. Autopsy of a divorce between the whimsical entrepreneur and the Democrats whose loss he swore…
Elon Musk has not always been the absolute supporter of Donald Trump, the one who now has his napkin ring at Mar-a-Lago, the billionaire's luxurious residence in Florida and who, after the praise reserved for him by the future president of the United States, will play a central role with him, undoubtedly failing to obtain a ministry in due form.
To see the energy and fortune – around $150 million – that the boss of Tesla and SpaceX has mobilized in the service of the Republican candidate, we would almost forget that the whimsical entrepreneur has long supported the opposing camp, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton or even Joe Biden for whom he voted in 2020. It was he who, in 2018, considered in an interview that global warming was “the greatest threat to humanity”.
During Covid, California Democrats
put Tesla in mortal danger
But what could have pushed Elon Musk to such a change of heart? His divorce from the Democrats obviously did not happen in a day, but it concluded a series of misunderstandings and divergences between two worlds that ultimately appeared incompatible in his eyes: the politics of those he ended up describing as “party of division and hatred”and the business or“American dream” as he sees it.
The breaking point begins to take shape in 2020, when the first tensions appear during the Covid crisis. The California Democrats then put in place some of the most restrictive health and containment measures in the country. The closure of the Fremont site, and its continued shutdown while its competitors Ford and GM were able to reopen earlier in neighboring states, or China had recalled its workers to the factories, threatened Tesla's survival. It took Elon Musk to threaten to outsource his production lines to be heard. Which did not prevent him, later, from carrying out his threat. After the Covid ordeal, the Californian Democratic government tried to impose on the boss of the automobile brand the unionization of its workers, although they were better paid than at other manufacturers. It was after this interference in his affairs that Tesla fled to Texas.
By removing it from the top of the electric car in 2021,
Biden humiliated him
For Elon Musk, the worst, however, was yet to come… In the summer of 2021, while the boss of Tesla had supported his candidacy and voted for him, Joe Biden not only excluded the market leader from a summit of the electric car at the White House, but also claimed that this new generation of vehicle had been invented by General Motors. It was a question, through these retaliatory measures, of sanctioning Elon Musk's anti-union posture, and for Joe Biden of giving assurances to the American left. It was at this moment of humiliation that the disappointment of the visionary boss transformed into hatred towards the democratic camp. The takeover of Twitter in October 2022 is part of its fight against what it calls the 'woke virus', which it associates with the values defended by the Democrats. But this strategy also marks an objective which is confirmed with the rallying of Elon Musk to Donald Trump: to defeat the enemy…
