Elon Musk Goes Full MAGA in Appearance With Trump, Spends Hours Boosting Pro-Trump Messages Online

The billionaire has already set up his own outside spending group to support the former president before November.

AP/Evan Vucci
Elon Musk jumps on the stage as President Trump speaks at a campaign rally at Butler, Pennsylvania. AP/Evan Vucci

After insisting as recently as 2022 that “for Twitter to deserve public trust, it must  be politically neutral,” Billionaire Elon Musk has changed course and is now leaning hard on his new conservative identity as a booster of President Trump, spending all hours of the day demanding voters support the former president this November. His social media platform X — facing revenue losses and a sharp decline in overall value — is arguably now the greatest megaphone the former president has, thanks in part to Mr. Musk.

The billionaire technology entrepreneur bounded onstage alongside the former president on Saturday night at Butler, Pennsylvania, on the same ground where in July Trump was shot and winged. He donned a black Make America Great Again hat, declaring himself to be part of the movement. 

“As you can see, I’m not just MAGA — I’m dark MAGA,” he said at the beginning of his remarks. Shortly after the speech, he changed his X profile picture to a photo of him wearing the black MAGA cap. 

In his speech, he warned that America would be gone if Trump is not elected in November. “They want to take away your right to vote,” Mr. Musk claimed of the Democrats. “President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. President Trump must win to preserve democracy in America. This is a must-win situation,” he said. 

In the last 24 hours, Mr. Musk has posted on X 135 times. Of those posts, 109 have been about his own speech at the Butler rally, Trump, or other political issues like voter registration and illegal immigration. He posted in response to many pro-Trump accounts that seem to now act as Mr. Musk’s own personal news feed. He also replied multiple times to the conservative legal group founded by former Trump advisor Stephen Miller. 

Mr. Musk boosted his new outside spending group, the America PAC, multiple times, which he set up to boost Trump’s campaign, as well as other Republicans. 

The group lists the following as its top priorities: “Secure Borders, Sensible Spending, Safe Cities, Fair Justice System, Free Speech, and Self-Protection.” Mr. Musk has already spent $5 million on key House races across the country, hoping to narrow the large spending advantage Democrats have had since President Biden dropped out of the race. 

Social media has long been a target of Republicans and conservative activists, especially since many platforms acquiesced to government demands that they downplay news about Hunter Biden’s laptop in October 2020. Government involvement with social media companies has become such a cause on the right that Speaker McCarthy even created a special subcommittee in the House to investigate such allegations. 

Republicans have so far been thrilled by Mr. Musk’s 2022 takeover of Twitter and subsequent rebranding as X. The billionaire often responds to posts from Senator Lee, who is a frequent user of the platform. 

Mr. Musk’s mother, Maye Musk, joined the X fray on Saturday night to talk about her own support for Trump despite being a former Democrat. She reposted a video from actor Jon Voight endorsing Trump, and wrote that it is “embarrassing” that she once believed what the press had written about Trump.


The New York Sun

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