Final month, Elon Musk posted on X that President Biden “clearly barely is aware of what’s happening.”
“He’s only a tragic entrance for a far left political machine,” Mr. Musk wrote. It was the twenty ninth time this yr that he had posted concerning the president on X, previously often called Twitter, which Mr. Musk purchased in 2022.
Mr. Musk has steadily ramped up his criticism of Mr. Biden because the marketing campaign season heats up earlier than the November presidential election. Mr. Musk has posted about Mr. Biden on X not less than seven instances a month since January, attacking the president for every little thing from his age to his insurance policies on immigration and well being. Earlier than that, he posted about Mr. Biden twice in December and by no means in November, in accordance with a New York Occasions evaluation. In all, Mr. Musk had posted almost 40 instances about Mr. Biden this yr, in contrast with about 30 instances for all of final yr.
In distinction, Mr. Musk had posted greater than 20 instances on X this yr about former President Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee. In these posts, Mr. Musk defended Mr. Trump, arguing that he’s a sufferer of media and prosecutorial bias within the prison instances that the previous president faces.
Mr. Musk’s posts about this yr’s presidential race stand out as a result of he’s signaling a willingness to tip the political scales because the proprietor of an influential social media platform, one thing that no different chief of a social media agency has completed. And Mr. Musk exerts outsize affect over the political discourse on X, the place he often posts to his 184 million followers.
Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s founder, has shied away from endorsing candidates and infrequently posts political content material on Fb or Instagram. Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief, and Sundar Pichai, Google’s chief, have additionally not posted political commentary on their corporations’ social media platforms, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Bhaskar Chakravorti, the dean of world enterprise on the Fletcher College at Tufts College, stated Mr. Musk’s outspokenness on his political beliefs might have penalties.
“He has possession and the most important follower base, and he’s a much-larger-than-life character with virtually godlike standing” on one of many largest platforms for political dialogue, Mr. Chakravorti stated. “If he was to essentially come out and assist a candidate and put his weight in opposition to it, it might have an effect.”
The White Home, the Biden marketing campaign, Mr. Musk and X didn’t reply to requests for remark.
By bringing an ideological bent to X, Mr. Musk mirrors what media moguls like Rupert Murdoch, whose empire contains Fox Information and The New York Put up, have completed by serving to form their retailers’ protection and broader political discourse, stated Sarah Kreps, a professor and director of the Tech Coverage Institute at Cornell College.
Mr. Murdoch “has a selected ideological valence and most of the people know what that’s, and that permeates by his completely different media retailers,” she stated. “Folks can decide into these or decide out,” much like X. Some customers — postpone by Mr. Musk’s ideological bent — have migrated to competing social media platforms, she stated.
Nonetheless, Mr. Musk is unlikely to tip November’s vote, social media consultants stated. A lot of his followers already agree along with his political stance, they stated, and the platform has shifted proper since his acquisition.
Mr. Musk has develop into extra publicly supportive of right-wing candidates and views lately. As not too long ago as 2022, he described himself as a centrist and a reluctant Democrat. He stated he voted for Mr. Biden hesitantly in 2020. Political giving information present that Mr. Musk has not made nationwide marketing campaign contributions since 2020, when he gave to Republican and Democratic Senate candidates.
However in June 2022, Mr. Musk stated he had voted for a Republican candidate for the primary time in a particular election for Texas’ thirty fourth Congressional District. Within the nationwide midterm elections that November, he urged voters to vote Republican in congressional races since a Democrat was within the White Home.
That evolution continued final Could when Mr. Musk hosted a buggy audio stream on X to announce and endorse Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, for the Republican presidential nomination. Mr. Musk has not made one other endorsement.
Mr. Musk has additionally repeatedly used X to vocally assist right-wing politicians all over the world, together with Javier Milei, the president of Argentina; Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil; and Narendra Modi of India. He has then tried to make use of that good will to foyer for benefits in these international locations for his different companies, together with SpaceX, a rocket firm, and Tesla, which makes electrical automobiles.
Mr. Musk has courted Mr. Trump, who was booted from X when it was nonetheless often called Twitter, after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot on the Capitol. After shopping for Twitter in 2022, Mr. Musk moved shortly to revive Mr. Trump’s account, though the previous president has posted solely as soon as on the platform since then.
Regardless that Mr. Musk has not endorsed Mr. Trump, he has had a number of conversations with the previous president. In March, Mr. Musk and Republican donors met with Mr. Trump in Palm Seaside, Fla., as the previous president sought election donations.
Afterward, Mr. Musk posted on X that he was “not donating cash to both candidate for US President.”
Mr. Musk has been sympathetic to Mr. Trump in his posts. “The extra unfair the assaults on Trump appear to the general public, the upper he’ll rise within the polls,” Mr. Musk wrote final week.
Mr. Musk has lengthy been crucial of Mr. Biden. In 2021, the billionaire slammed Mr. Biden for his choices on electrical car promotion and subsidies, most of which favored unionized U.S. auto producers. Tesla, the place Mr. Musk is chief govt, has resisted efforts to unionize its manufacturing.
“My choice for the 2024 presidency is somebody wise and centrist,” Mr. Musk posted in November 2022, weeks after shopping for Twitter — and simply as he introduced Mr. Trump again onto the platform. He added that he had been hopeful concerning the Biden administration, however was “disillusioned thus far.”
In January, Mr. Musk ramped up his critiques of Mr. Biden. He posted seven instances concerning the president that month, primarily concerning immigration insurance policies, simply because the Biden administration sued Texas over a regulation that allowed native regulation enforcement to arrest migrants.
“I can’t see myself voting for Biden,” Mr. Musk stated, accusing the president of “facilitating unlawful immigration.”
In February, Mr. Musk stated Mr. Biden supported lax immigration restrictions as a result of they’d give him and the Democratic Celebration a bonus within the November election.
“Biden’s technique could be very easy: 1. Get as many illegals within the nation as potential. 2. Legalize them to create a everlasting majority — a one-party state,” Mr. Musk wrote. Because the variety of folks crossing into the US has reached report ranges, Mr. Biden has referred to as for a stricter crackdown on immigration and accused Republicans of stymieing his efforts.
Since then, Mr. Musk has escalated his commentary on Mr. Biden, posting 12 instances in March and complaining the media is a “Biden cheering squad.”
Final month, at a feast in Los Angeles, Mr. Musk together with different billionaires, together with Mr. Murdoch and the enterprise capitalist Peter Thiel, mentioned oppose Mr. Biden’s re-election, in accordance with an individual acquainted with the occasion, who spoke on the situation of anonymity to debate delicate issues. The dinner was earlier reported by Puck.
Throughout an interview with the previous CNN host Don Lemon in March, Mr. Musk stated that he would proceed voicing his opinion however didn’t need “to place a thumb on the dimensions monetarily that’s vital,” and that he may endorse a candidate throughout “the ultimate stretch.”
”I’m leaning away from Biden,” he stated, laughing.