Elon Musk is planning to give $100 million to two political groups associated with President Donald Trump, according to a report from the New York Times. The move is unprecedented in American politics for many reasons, including the fact that federal “employees” like Musk typically don’t give millions of dollars to their “boss.” But it’s also notable because Trump just hosted a wildly unethical promotional event for Tesla at the White House on Tuesday.
Musk plans to donate a combined $100 million to the super PAC known as Make America Great Again Inc. and a political nonprofit group Securing American Greatness, according to the report from the Times. One thing that makes these donations so odd is that Musk already has his own group, known as America PAC, which was instrumental in running disinformation campaigns to help Trump win the election in November.
Why isn’t Musk just donating to his own PAC? That part isn’t clear. But the Times speculates it’s part of a desire for the billionaire to show he’s a “team player.” Musk and Trump don’t like each other very much on a personal level, according to countless insider gossip accounts over recent months. But they clearly have an understanding that they need each other to accomplish their goals. Musk wants control of the U.S. government in order to funnel money to his own businesses, and Trump needs Musk’s money to keep politicians in line.
Musk, for example, bought ads targeting Sen. Joni Ernst in Iowa when it looked like the Republican might not support the confirmation of Fox News host Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary. Hegseth had been accused of sexual assault and railed against the presence of women in the military, two issues that apparently upset Ernst. But after Musk ran the ads, Ernst fell in line, and Hegseth was confirmed, albeit with Vice President JD Vance casting the tie-breaking vote in the Senate.
America PAC has now moved on to influencing the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, with Musk’s group dropping over $8 million to support a conservative judge in an election next month, according to the Associated Press. Donald Trump Jr. and Charlie Kirk are even swooping in to hold a town hall for the conservative judge on Monday.
The other very odd thing about Musk’s plan to spend money on groups for Trump is that it has no historical precedent in the U.S. political system. Musk is the wealthiest person in the world but also ostensibly an “employee” of the federal government. By giving money to Trump-affiliated groups, he appears to be buying even more influence than he already has. Musk is unilaterally shutting down payments to programs he doesn’t like and has dismantled USAID, an action that’s blatantly illegal since only Congress has the power to create and destroy agencies through appropriations. The Department of Education is being destroyed this week, and Musk has signaled that Social Security is next on the list.
Musk’s actions are being challenged in the courts, but there are no guarantees that even if the good guys win, much of the damage will be fixable. Once you destroy enormous institutions, it’s not like flipping a light switch to bring them back. Leases have been canceled, and tens of thousands of people have been fired. If you wanted to remake USAID tomorrow, it would require enormous resources to get the agency back up and running.
Many people are also suspicious of the timing of Musk’s donations, since Trump has been promoting Tesla in recent weeks, going so far as to hold an event Tuesday with Musk while standing in front of the electric carmaker’s vehicles. Trump said he was going to buy a Tesla, and news cameras even captured a sheet of paper that Trump was reading from, which looked identical to sales literature. Trump even posted a screenshot of a tweet from Fox News host Sean Hannity, who claimed he had recently purchased a Tesla.
This kind of salesmanship and self-dealing is obviously normalized at this point with Trump in office, but if you step back and remember what’s actually happening here, it’s truly bizarre. You have two billionaires standing outside the White House promoting their wares like it’s a used car lot. All because Tesla’s sales have plummeted and its stock price has tanked as Musk’s brand has become synonymous with fascism.
The U.S. is little more than a punchline around the world, but it’s an increasingly dangerous environment for vulnerable Americans. The trans community is under attack, children are getting food ripped from their mouths, and a green card holder was just thrown into ICE detention and faces deportation not for breaking the law but for saying things the government didn’t like.
Nobody knows what will happen in the near future, but the Democrats have put up very little resistance to the ongoing fascist takeover of the U.S. In fact, 17 Democrats voted to confirm Trump’s labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, this week. These people have the gall to say they’re doing everything they can to fight back against Musk and Trump, all while voting to install their hand-picked stooges.
The protests as Tesla dealerships are making waves, but if the Democrats don’t start acting like a real opposition party, there will be no real fix to America’s current predicament. And time is running out.
