There are few who personally endure Elon Musk who don’t end up finding him uniquely off putting. That includes his political ally, former President Donald Trump, who is also nowadays increasingly relying on billionaires like Musk to use their considerable fortunes to put him back in the White House.
Trump has publicly cozied up to the Tesla CEO — telling rallygoers “I love Elon Musk” and touting the support of the world’s richest man. Trump has floated giving Musk an adviser or cabinet role in his administration. He also recently participated in an embarrassing, glitch-ridden X Spaces conversation with Musk.
None of that means that Trump actually likes Musk. According to a person close to the twice-impeached convicted felon, Trump “thinks he’s weird. Sorry to use a word used a lot by Democrats now.” This source has spoken to the former president about Musk as recently as July. Another source, who has been in the room multiple times over the years when Trump has spoken privately about Musk, relays to Rolling Stone that Trump has at times, as recently as in the past few months, said that Musk is “boring,” annoying, and prone to mood swings.
That may sound rich, coming from Donald J. Trump, who is arguably all three of those things to a galling degree. Still, it underscores Trump’s own ability to recognize the inherent weirdness or unpopular traits of some of his most prominent political backers. For instance, Trump has long understood, in a way that many conservative leaders have not, that it is imperative for the GOP’s electoral successes that Republicans relentlessly about what their plans are on abortion, because most Americans find their views repulsive.
In the past, Trump and Musk have publicly feuded, with the former gratuitously insulting the latter, in part because Musk said it was time to move on from Trump in 2022 and supported Florida’s Gov. Ron DeSantis’ 2024 Republican primary bid.
“When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all his many subsidized projects,” Trump wrote in 2022, “whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it.”
Around that same time, Trump also called Musk a “bullshit artist.”
Nowadays, they’ve patched things up and formed an explicit political alliance. Musk is spearheading a Super PAC supporting Trump’s presidential campaign. It’s not clear how much Musk has donated to the effort — he repeatedly denied a report that he planned to donate $45 million per month to the group, after Trump bragged about it at a rally — but the Super PAC has already spent $37 million to help Trump secure a second term.
In the last two weeks, it’s ramped up spending, dropping more than $16 million on outreach.
Sources note that while Trump obviously says some nicer things privately about Musk now, he still sometimes peppers in his ruder assessments. Indeed, even publicly, Trump’s true feelings find ways of trickling out on occasion. The former president recently described Musk as “a very different kind of a guy,” which sources close to Trump describe as not a compliment.
When asked about the reporting on the harsher private words Trump has had for Musk recently, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung simply tells Rolling Stone the former president and Musk “agree on the big issues facing our country, and that Kamala Harris must be stopped before she completely destroys America,” adding: “That’s why so many people from all political backgrounds have united behind President Trump to Make America Great Again.”
But the former president’s change of tone when it comes to Musk, especially compared to two years ago, is blatantly transactional. If Trump defeats Vice President Kamala Harris in November, one of the main reasons why will be because of Musk’s money.
A Trump victory could be a big financial win for Musk. Harris has proposed a wealth tax on households worth more than $100 million, as well as an increase in the corporate tax rate, which Trump slashed as president. Musk, worth a reported $247 billion, posted on X that Harris’ economic agenda “leads to bread lines and ugly shoes.”
Trump, meanwhile, is pitching to wealthy donors that they need to fund him so he can protect their tax cuts, and cut the corporate tax rate even further.
