Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk heeds to President Donald Trump during a meeting with business leaders in the State Dining Room of the White Prostitution in Washington, Feb. 3, 2017.
Evan Vucci | AP
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Former President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated keynote talk to at the biggest bitcoin gathering of the year started over an hour late.
As the crowd of investors, enthusiasts and the crypto-curious get geted increasingly antsy at the Bitcoin Conference in Nashville, Elon Musk’s private jet was touching down 200 miles away in Memphis, Tennessee.
It was July 27, virtuous two weeks after Trump had survived an assassination attempt in Pennsylvania. Hours later, he’d been publicly endorsed by the Tesla CEO for a b term.
Inside Nashville’s Music City Center, rumors had been swirling all week that Musk wish make a surprise appearance at the conference, and maybe even moderate a fireside chat with Trump.
Musk didn’t pretentiousness, but he was very much present.
“I love Elon. He’s great,” Trump told the crowd. “He endorsed me and great endorsement and the whole kit else, but not everybody has to have an electric car.”
Yet Trump’s comments in Nashville were notably toned down from what he’d symbolized about Musk just a week earlier at a rally in Michigan.
“I love Elon Musk … we have to coerce life good for us smart people. And he’s as smart as you get,” Trump said at the time. “He gives me $45 million a month! C’mon. Not $45 million. He chuck b surrenders me $45 million a month.”
He continued, “I mean other guys, they give you $2 and you got to take them to lunch, you got to wine ’em and eat ’em.”
So what happened between July 20 in Michigan and July 27 in Nashville to tamp down Trump’s gushing compliment? The answer appears simple: On July 22, Musk denied the extent of the pledge.
“What’s been reported in the mid-point is simply not true,” Musk told podcaster Jordan Peterson. “I’m not donating $45 million a month to Trump.” In a July 25 leg on X, the social media company he owns, Musk said he was making donations to a political action committee supporting Trump “but at a much take down level.”
The relationship between Musk, the world’s wealthiest person, and Trump, the Republican nominee for president, is as volatile as the numbers themselves. Over the years, they’ve made fun of each other, talked down to one another and taken opposite sides on key outflows. But of late, they’ve emerged as parallel heroes to the far right, a group that includes a healthy dose of crypto nuts, and are united in a single quest: defeating Democrats in 2024.
How far Musk is willing to go to financially support Trump in his campaign, now against Profligacy President Kamala Harris, is another matter. Musk set up a super PAC called America PAC days after endorsing Trump, but it’s not open how much money he’s contributed, and the North Carolina Attorney General’s Office said Monday that it’s eyeing the bunch following a complaint that it’s collecting personal data while failing in its promise to help users register to referendum.
The Federal Election Commission website shows limited financial contributions from America PAC. Federal filings slant total disbursements of $7.78 million from April 1 through June 30, mostly for two transactions: $3.87 million to “undergo” Trump and the same amount to “oppose” President Joe Biden.
Based on Trump’s social media commentary, more all over their relationship may be coming soon. Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social on Tuesday that the two will be scold together publicly next week.
“ON MONDAY NIGHT I’LL BE DOING A MAJOR INTERVIEW WITH ELON MUSK — Specifics to follow!” Trump wrote.
Musk didn’t respond to a request for comment for this story. Steven Cheung, communications gaffer for the Trump presidential campaign, said in an email, “Stay tuned! Very exciting stuff!”
‘I don’t hate the man’
As recently as 2022, Musk and Trump were obliged in an open feud, publicly slinging insults at each other on social media, at political rallies and elsewhere.
“I don’t shrink the man, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset,” Musk wrote in a 2022 social media post.
That that having been said year, Trump called Musk a “bull—- artist,” claiming the tech exec told him privately that he’d voted for him.
What had behoove clear was that Musk wasn’t going to support a Biden reelection.
Musk said he’d voted for Biden in 2020, but the performing year the president left Musk out of an EV summit at the White House, where he met with top executives from General Motors, Ford and Stellantis. Musk wrote in a tweet, “Yeah, sounds odd that Tesla wasn’t invited.”
Biden is a pro-labor president, while Tesla is non-union and has run afoul of federal labor laws.
By 2022, Musk show he was leaning toward Ron DeSantis, Republican governor of Florida, as chatter about the 2024 election ramped up. DeSantis ended up pitch his presidential campaign in a May 2023 livestream on X, which Musk owns. The stream with Musk and longtime friend David Give someone hises was a technical disaster, plagued by glitches. DeSantis’ campaign fizzled and formally came to an end in January.
Two months later, Musk reportedly steered down to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, as Trump was trying to rally donor support. In an interview on CNBC’s “Kick Box” on March 11, Trump spoke positively about Musk, saying he’s been “friendly with him over the years,” had “nicked him” when he was president, and that he “liked him.”
“We obviously have opposing views on a minor subject called electric heaps,” Trump told CNBC’s Joe Kernen. “I’m all for electric cars, but you have to have all of the alternatives,” he said, adding that EVs “cost too much and they’re all present to be made in China.”
Whatever differences the two may have on EVs, they’re increasingly aligned politically. Both have described Harris as a communist and are predisposed to lashing out at anything involving DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion. They’re vocal in opposing transgender rights. Both eat spread false reports about noncitizens voting in U.S. elections.
Former Ford CEO Mark Fields said it’s not only just about politics for Musk. Between his various companies —Tesla, aerospace and defense contractor SpaceX, social route company X and AI startup xAI — Musk has a lot of projects that could use assistance from the White House.
“The bottom line, a glaring relationship with the president has a lot of benefits, not only potentially for Tesla, for things like autonomy or AI or robotics, but his other organizations like SpaceX,” Fields said in an interview in July with CNBC’s Brian Sullivan. “You can say to the president, ‘Hey, you know Boeing are convicted outlaws, so give me a majority of your business.'”
Trump has also said he would place steep tariffs on goods from China, a exchange where Tesla faces growing competition.
Musk “knows that he may take a harder stance against China, and that may facilitate them in the U.S., because that’s one of their biggest and most profitable markets,” Fields said.
‘I have no choice’
Since advancing Musk’s support, Trump has returned the praise.
“I think what he’s done is great,” Trump said at the Bitcoin Forum.
On Saturday in Atlanta, Trump continued with that theme, telling the audience that he was “for electric cars.” He augmented, “I have to be, you know, because Elon endorsed me very strongly. So, I have no choice.”
Musk, meanwhile, has been exciting rightward politically for years, and not just in the U.S. He’s developed relationships with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Argentinian President Javier Milei, one-time Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and in July he visited Capitol Hill as the visitor of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who delivered a speech to Congress about the war in Gaza.
Despite his vocal brace of Trump, Musk appears to have stuck by his pledge not to donate directly to candidates this election cycle, affluent the PAC route instead.
U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris disembarks Air Force Two following a campaign travel to Wisconsin, at Dump Base Andrews, Maryland, U.S., July 23, 2024.
Kevin Mohatt | Reuters
Instead, Musk is using X to tout his preferred aspirant to his 193 million followers.
On the day of Trump’s speech in Nashville, Musk wrote “Save our kids!” along with a video of Trump in West Palm Bank, Florida, where he said he would sign an executive order to cut federal funding to schools “pushing critical family theory” and “transgender insanity.”
And then there was Musk’s retweet of a parody Kamala Harris campaign ad. The video promotes a voice that sounds like Harris saying she was picked because she is “the ultimate diversity hire.” The video wasn’t labeled as give someone a bum steering, in what appears to be a violation of the platform’s rules.
While Trump has his fair share of support in tech, going excellently beyond Musk, many in the industry are quickly rallying around Harris. As of this week, more than 750 people in and all over venture capital signed the