Elon Musk and Donald Trump Are Spending Election Night Together
Everyone has their own way of dealing with election night, whether it's tuning into the mayhem or willfully insulating yourself from it. Lo and behold, Elon Musk — the world's richest man and biggest Trump cheerleader — will be spending it with the man on the ticket himself.
reports , Musk will stay with Donald Trump tonight at the Republican presidential candidate's Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, and will be among the small cadre of people to monitor the results with him as they come in.
This is one the loudest signs yet of just how quickly Musk has wormed his way into Trump's inner circle — but it's not surprising. Musk has spent well over $100 million supporting Trump through his America PAC , and has attended several of his rallies, gracing attendees with awkwardly executed "USA!" chants and curious, X-shaped leaps .
There is also real cause for alarm among Trump's opponents. Trump and his supporters are already preempting a stolen election narrative with baseless claims of widespread voter fraud . That Trump will be side by side with Musk, who controls a vital informational pipeline in X-formerly-Twitter, and who himself tireless spreads misinformation and right wing conspiracy theories on the platform, may be too close of a pairing for comfort on so decisive a night.
Love-Hate
While Musk has been undergoing a rightward turn for years now, his impending night with Trump can be whiplash-inducing to those who have followed his story so far.
When Trump was last in office, Musk famously stormed out of his positions on two of Trump's advisory councils , more or less decrying the sitting president as a climate change denier.
The two have subsequently gone back and forth , sometimes with good things to say about each other and sometimes bad.
But these days, beyond all the fundraising and cheerleading he's doing for the man, Musk's devotion to the Trump project seems unquestionable. He may even have a role in Trump's administration — perhaps informally, or perhaps as the head of a dubious Department of Government Efficiency — if Trump triumphs tonight.
