Musk/Trump: 'As close as you can get' to election interference

By Michael Baggs (with Emily, Jon and Lewis)

Elon Musk has campaigned for Donald Trump to win the November election but may be skating dangerously close to election interference with his online, and financial, activities.

In brief…

Read time: 5 mins

• Elon Musk once said Twitter/X should be politically neutral, but is openly campaigning against Democrats and sharing false posts online to his 200 million followers.
• He appeared with Donald Trump at a recent rally, with images of him leaping around on stage going viral for all the wrong reasons.
• The News Agents say both men are trying to convince American voters that they do not represent the powerful elite in America.

What’s the story?

You've probably seen the photos. Musk leaping up and down, or leering as he extends a hand to Trump while wearing a black 'Make America great again' hat.

"I’m not just MAGA, I’m dark MAGA," he told the cheering crowds.

The footage went viral, turning Musk into a meme on his own platform.

But if you think Elon Musk’s campaigning for Donald Trump only extends to jumping around on the stage and cheering Trump on, you’d be wrong.

Also this week, Musk, via America PAC - a committee of influential tech businessmen which has the sole purpose of supporting Trump's election campaign - has begun targeting voters in US swing states by offering $47 dollars to anyone who refers a voter in such a state to Musk's cause.

The move has led Musk to be accused of harvesting voter information with the promise of registering to vote through the America PAC system – which does not register anyone.

It was only two years ago that Musk said, on his own social media platform: "For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral."

So perhaps, with his campaigning of late, we can assume “public trust” is no longer a priority for the Tesla billionaire, who told a Republican rally in Butler, Pennsylvania that "President Trump must win to preserve the Constitution. He must win to preserve democracy in America."

What's happening with Elon Musk and Donald Trump?

How else has Elon Musk become involved in Trump’s election campaign?

Elon Musk's campaigning for Donald Trump goes far beyond the constant stream of posts on X about how Kamala Harris will destroy democracy or how Democrats have "actively encouraged people to kill Trump".

In October 2024, it was revealed Musk had been donating tens of millions to Trump since 2022.

Earlier this year, Musk was accused of making more than 50 false or misleading X posts about the US election by the Centre for Countering Digital Hate.

Musk was forced to delete an X post in September which questioned why "no one is even trying to assassinate Biden / Kamala," over concerns it could incite violence.

He claimed it was a joke, which friends had found hilarious when made privately.

And it was one he found so funny, he repeated it again, on camera, during a recent interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.

More recently, Musk shared false claims a bomb had been found near a Trump rally and yes – of course – he also pushed entirely false claims about Haitian migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio.

He also accused Google of election interference when a search showed him results for 'President Donald Duck', which is what many people have accused him of with his social media and financial actions in recent years.

Offering a $47 payment to people signing others up to vote Republican must be, Jon Sopel says, is “as close as you can come” to election interference.

“I bet you his lawyers have been over it and said: ‘This is as close as you can go to the line. Go a step further, and you tip over.’”

Emily Maitlis adds that “illegal is not necessarily a turnoff in Trump-world, who is – as we know – a man with 34 convictions.”

The support hasn’t always gone both ways. In 2022 Trump posted a photo of the pair in the Oval Office of the White House on Truth Social, describing him as the brains behind "electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere."

The former President added that without subsidies, Musk would be "worthless" and suggested he could have told him to drop to his knees and "beg" for support on future projects.

Independent reports claim a significant chunk of Musk’s 200 million followers on X are fake or inactive.

There’s more we could cover here – such as Musk’s mum being recently accused of encouraging voter fraud – but we’d be here all day, so let’s crack on.

What's The News Agents' take?

Having previously been a Democrat supporter, then backing Ron DeSantis's bid to become the Republican candidate before finally throwing his support behind Donald Trump, Emily describes Musk as "a little dog scampering around trying to find the right owner."

Lewis Goodall is a touch more direct, calling him "a complete freak," and one who is "becoming more and more freakish over time."

"There's a very strong sense that he has been radicalised, potentially by his own content and by the content that he reads," he says.

"He's reinforced by his own website."

He suggests Musk's shift from backing Biden in 2020 to Trump in 2024 may be due to the Democrat president cracking down on monopolies in the tech industry and introducing tighter data security in the US.

Jon adds that Trump's pledge to introduce a 200% tariff on Chinese-made electric vehicles imported to the US might also have had some sway on Musk's allegiances.

"It's not that difficult to join the dots," Jon says.

And when those dots are joined, the big picture is (of course) money.

"Musk is speaking for a breed of very powerful people, usually very rich, very influential men," says Lewis.

"This would include Trump as well, who in order to make their politics work, they have to constantly feed a complex persecution narrative."

He says people such as Trump and Musk must constantly try to convince people they are not the ones with the power, and that they are against a rigged system which is oppressing them, their views and their bank balances.

"’We're the victims, and it's them out to get us’," says Lewis. "And that is just an absolutely classic example of that phenomenon."

Many Americans, Lewis adds – and especially those who are less politically minded – still associate Trump with "wealth, success and strength" – the same characteristics some see in his new billionaire buddy.

"Musk, for all of his weirdness and frailties and freakishness, is far richer even than Trump," he says.

"He has those components to him as well. So I suppose there is an element of self reinforcement of the Trump brand by being associated with someone like that, for good or ill."

Listen in full on The News Agents

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