Front Burner - Why did Elon Musk go all in on Trump?

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

As recently as 2022, billionaire Elon Musk was saying that Donald Trump should "hang up his hat & sail into the sunset." But in recent months, Musk has become one of the most influential supporters of Trump's campaign to regain the presidency, from appearances at rallies to millions of his own dollars in funding.What prompted his change of heart? And how much might it have to do with the relationship his companies like Tesla, SpaceX and StarLink have with the U.S. government — both in terms of contracts and investigations into regulatory breaches?Washington Post technology reporter Trisha Thadani explains why Musk is all in on Trump, and what he stands to gain from a second Trump presidency.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. I'm Doc Gothic Maga. In that episode, we touched on two angles that were so interesting that we felt that they both deserved their own episode with the space to drill down. So we're going to do that. Today, we're going to talk about how and why billionaire Elon Musk has loomed so large over the election.

And tomorrow, we're going to go to Michigan to talk about how disillusioned the large portion of Arab Americans are there about U.S. policies in the Middle East. All right. So to talk all things Elon, I am joined today by Trisha Thadani. She's a technology reporter for The Washington Post. She's been covering Musk for a long time, and she recently spent some time with members of his super PAC for Trump on the ground in Wisconsin. Trisha, hi, Thank you so much for making the time. Thanks so much for having me. So Elon has been stomping for Trump at rallies at Madison Square Gardens earlier this week. America's just not going to be great.

America is going to reach heights that it has never seen before. The future is going to reach heights that it has never seen before. The future is going to be amazing. We had a rally earlier this month in Pennsylvania at the site of the first assassination attempt against Trump. Fight, fight, fight. Blood coming down the face. When we see Elon get up and stump for Trump, what kind of things does he say? What's his pitch for Trump? Yeah, so Musk's reasoning for supporting Trump, or at least the ones he says out loud, is because he supports Trump's positions around immigration, around crime.

If Trump loses, we're going to see, you know, our cities are going to get less safe. The border is obviously going to be wide open. We're going to see government spending go Borders are obviously going to be wide open. We're going to see government spending go ballistic. It's inflation going nuts. It's going to be just bad on every level. The other side wants to take away your freedom of speech. They want to take away your right to bear arms. They want to take away your right to vote effectively.

they want to take away your right to vote effectively. You've got 14 states. And also on a more like philosophical level, you know, we've seen Elon Musk rail against this so-called woke mind virus that he said has afflicted the left. And he feels that Trump is also ideologically aligned with him on that as well. So we see Musk, you know, supporting those policies when it comes to immigration and

crime, etc. We also see him sort of fear mongering as well, saying things as stark as if Trump doesn't win, this is going to be the last election. So my prediction is if there's another four years of a Dem administration, they will legalize so many illegals that are there that the next election, there won't be any swing states. And we'll be a single party country, just like California is a single party state. That's a super majority Dem state in California. Because of immigration? Yes. Has it improved the state?

No. And of course, there he is sort of suggesting these unfounded claims of voter fraud and how the left is trying to sort of rig the election in favor of them. So he's really doing a lot. I mean, his rhetoric has been really, really notable in this in these last couple of months. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it certainly seems to me like he's way more front and center in this campaign than even he was a few weeks ago. Right. And just I wonder if you could just tell me how it came to be that he is now looming so large here. Yeah. Yeah. The reason it feels like Elon Musk is everywhere in these last couple of months is because Elon Musk has put himself everywhere.

is because Elon Musk has put himself everywhere. And this has been a really stark thing to watch this transformation happen, even in just the last couple of months to even just the last few weeks. So Musk, as you guys may know, he's been behind this huge get out the vote effort. And here we call them a super PAC. So he's been part of this huge super PAC called the America PAC that he created to support Trump. He's been funneling his tons of money into it. The latest disclosures that we have show that he's poured so far $118 million of his own money. And that's all that we know of as well. Philadelphia district attorney is now suing Elon Musk and his super PAC. The DA is trying to stop a daily million

dollar giveaway to registered voters, which he says is illegal under state law. Yeah, earlier this month, Musk's super PAC started giving away that one million dollars to a random registered voter in a swing state who signed a petition supporting the first and second amendments. So he's been pouring a lot of money and time into this. And we learned that when he first formed this PAC back in the spring, he did not want to be seen as the face of it. He'd actually taken pains to tell people, you know, or outright said like he wasn't interested in sort of being the face of this, of really being out front. That has since changed. You know, now his name is all over the paraphernalia for the Super PAC. You know, you go to its website, you see Elon Musk's picture right at the

top. When I was out canvassing with one of his door knockers in Wisconsin, which is a swing state, you know, she was saying, oh, did you know that this is Elon Musk's Super PAC? And then, of course, now we've seen him increasingly speaking at rallies, most recently at Madison Square Garden. USA! USA! USA! USA! USA! So, you know, Elon Musk has really made this about Elon Musk as well. Why do you think that is? Why the shift? I think it has become clear of how much Musk has to gain from a Trump presidency. As we know,

Trump is an incredibly transactional person and was an incredibly transactional president. And so for Musk, someone who has these tremendous contracts with the federal government, you know, with SpaceX, his rocket company, and Starlink, his satellite internet company, he's got a lot at stake with the federal government. And that's also not to mention his latest venture with his electric vehicle company, Tesla, which has had a hard time under the Biden administration. There's been investigations, there's been recalls, and now he's also really staked the future of his company on creating the so-called robo-taxi.

As you can see, I just arrived in the robo-taxi, the cyber cab. And there's 20 more where that came from. And ahead, under the current administration, I mean, there would be a lot of regulatory hurdles in order for him to do that. We expect to be in production with the cyber cab, which is really highly optimized for autonomous transport in probably, well, I tend to be a little optimistic with timeframes, but in 2026. So yeah, before 2027, let me put it that way. And Musk has gone as far to say that if there are regulatory hurdles, he would be sure that this so-called

efficiency commission that Trump has said that he would appoint Musk to serve on would ensure that there was a smooth path for this venture. Trump revealing he's taken a suggestion from a supporter and tech billionaire, Elon Musk, to create a government efficiency commission, which would audit the entire federal government to cut waste. And Elon, because he's not very busy, has agreed to head that task force. This is just mad waste. And I think simply, if people simply know that, well, if they waste a ton of taxpayer money, they're going to get fired. That will immediately improve the situation. Immediately. fired, that will immediately improve the situation. Immediately. There's also ego tied up into it.

You know, Musk is somebody who likes to have his name in front of things. So it's also a vanity contest here. This government efficiency bureau or whatever Trump calls it. Whatever you want to call it. Yeah, sure. Let's go with that. There's been talk that perhaps Elon would head that, right? Like, I imagine that that would create some pretty major conflicts of interest here. Even if he doesn't take on a role inside the government, what kind of concerns have been voiced about, you know, potential conflicts of interest coming down the pipe if Trump wins?

Yeah. So this so-called Department of Government Efficiency, as Trump and Musk have called it, the idea of this would be to, for lack of a better term, sort of trim the fat in federal government. And that's an ethos that Musk has also run his own companies with. We saw when he took over Twitter, there was a total gutting of the staff. I think the latest stat I saw was he laid off about 75 to 80 percent of the company once he took over and really trimmed it to the bone. So how do you run the company with only 20% of the staff? It turns out you don't need all that many people to run Twitter. But 80%? That's a lot.

Yes. I mean, if you're not trying to run some sort of glorified activist organization and you don't care that much about censorship, then you can really let go of a lot of people, it turns out. With Tessa, we've seen him do sudden firings, sudden layoffs of really important teams, just kind of, you know, at his own whim. And so that has concerned a lot of folks who have been watching Musk and his leadership style for a while, the idea of having somebody have such a prominent role in the federal government, where he would be able to put his thumb on the scale.

We don't have too many details about what this commission or department or whatever it ends up being would do, but the idea is to find where there can be trims in terms of staffing, what agencies can use cost cutting, stuff like that. And for somebody who has so much at stake with the federal government to be able to have access to this kind of role in the federal government has been really concerning in terms of what kind of conflicts of interest this would bring up and if it's even legal. Yeah. There's also been this big antitrust push from the Biden administration in recent times, right? Most notably in the case of Alphabet, the parent company of Google. And

to what extent might this also be about cutting off that push? Yeah. I mean, Musk has been somebody who's railed against government regulations and for a while you know he's gone as far to say it's like they the last administration continues to put more and more regulations on things and soon you know nothing will be legal to do like you won't be able to do anything if the current trend of of you know strength of strangulation by over regulation is not turned around we'll never get to Mars. It just will be illegal. And then we'll be a one-planet civilization.

There won't be a space-bearing civilization. And Starfleet will never be real. And we want Starfleet to be real. So, yeah, this is also something I'm sure he would love to see changed. And, again, even if he's not formally part of the federal government, given all that he's done by putting himself out front for Trump in such a way and again, understanding what a transactional person and politician Trump is, I mean, Musk really does stand to gain from all this. And you mentioned before the investigations

into his companies. And just, could you just tell me a little bit more about what's going on there? So for Tesla in particular, Musk has had a bumpy couple of years. So Musk's hallmark technology with Tesla is this so-called driver assistance software called Autopilot, where it's essentially fancy cruise control. There has been, you know, dozens of crashes that have been linked to the technology where essentially people either weren't paying attention or the technology malfunctioned. And that prompted the attention of federal regulators. They opened a two-year investigation into that. And the culmination of it was the largest recall in Tesla's history.

Tesla is recalling just over two million vehicles in the United States. It's to install new safeguards for vehicles carrying its Autopilot Advanced Driver Assistance System. The electric vehicle giant made the move after a safety regulator said the system was open to foreseeable misuse. So, you know, it's things like this that the federal government the move after a safety regulator said the system was open to foreseeable misuse. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration... So, you know, it's things like this that the federal government has done over the last couple of years that has really soured Musk on the current administration.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples,

I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. We talked briefly about one of his companies, Twitter. What role has the platform played in this election? And, you know, are we able to say with any sort of certainty that the platform itself is being used to boost mega-leaning messages? Yeah, Elon Musk's takeover of the platform has been really incredible from the standpoint of, like, the complete transformation that it has had under him. Under him, we have really seen him use it as a megaphone for his chosen candidate. You know, he amplifies Trump, he amplifies his supporters. And anytime Musk retweets or responds to something, I mean, he has 200 million followers, I mean, probably more at this point. So he really has

a tremendous amount of influence there. And he's also, you know, he hosted Trump for a two-hour conversation on the platform where it got millions of views. And not only is he using this as a megaphone for his candidate, but he's also been a major vector of misinformation on this platform and has not taken any concrete steps that we can see as users of the platform to control this misinformation that's rampant on the site. And there's been a tremendous amount of concerns of what's going to happen, you know, on election day and beyond when it comes to, you know, false claims of voter fraud, false claims of election interference and Musk's role in that. And in terms of there being actual proof of how he's tilted the scales of the platform or tilted the algorithm in favor of Trump supporters and those

on the right, there hasn't been any, we haven't been able to get sort of a comprehensive look at maybe how the algorithm has been tweaked or anything like that. But just recently, one of my colleagues at the Washington Post wrote that Republican accounts have a higher propensity of going viral than Democratic accounts. We put out a story on Wednesday that shows how Musk's fact-checking program, this thing called Community Notes, is really failing to control misinformation as well. So, you know, it's unclear exactly what tweaks have been made, but you go on the platform and you're inundated by right-wing content.

When you were out in Wisconsin door knocking with people working with his super PAC, right? What were people at the doors saying? Did they talk about Elon Musk? What was that experience like? Yeah, so I was in Wisconsin in this small town called New Berlin. And Wisconsin is obviously a really critical battleground state this election cycle. And in New Berlin, and again, this was a really small, this was a small sample size in one town in one afternoon in one, you know, neighborhood of this town. But it was quite stark of how, what a mix we got while we were there. And it really showed the indecision. It was a little bit of a microcosm into the indecision of folks in these battleground states.

did were either Harris supporters, and you know, at one point, the canvasser I was with actually got the door slammed in her face. Then there was a bunch of undecided voters who said they genuinely didn't know who they were going to vote for. And then there was a few that were for Trump. And the few that were for Trump, the canvasser who I was with, if she would have time to sort of chit chat with them, Elon Musk would inevitably come up. The reactions weren't anything huge. You know, Musk is obviously a household name. But one man who I spoke to who said he was a Trump voter, he was like, oh, yeah, I heard that he was, that Musk was involved. And then I asked him how he felt about that. And he was like, well, I'm glad to have somebody like him on, quote, our side. And when I asked him what he meant about that, he was like, well, it's really important to have somebody with such clout, such money and somebody who's so smart to be working for us. And so I thought that was a really interesting window into just how far Musk's influence goes into this election.

into just how far Musk's influence goes into this election. Yes. I think it's probably also worth us mentioning here in this conversation that there was some recent reporting from the Wall Street Journal that Musk has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the last two years, which is roughly the same window in which we've really seen him go all in on Trump. And what do we know about the nature of those conversations and Musk's relationship with Putin and how it fits into the conversation that you and I are having right now? Yeah, so that was based on really good reporting from the Wall Street Journal. And of course, you know, it's another thing that's really concerning and is also something that just shows the tremendous reach of Elon Musk. And it shows you how far his influence and money can take him.

And lastly, Trisha, I was just watching this clip of Musk with Tucker Carlson where he started joking about how, in his words... If he loses, I'm fucked. It does seem that way. You can't just be like, you can't just be like, yo, I... Yeah, I'm like, how long do you think my prison sentence is going to be? Do you think? Will I see my children? I don't know.

Because it's not like you can say, well, yeah, I maxed out to them, but, you know, I get... I have no plausible deniability. No. No, no, and I've been trashing Kamala nonstop. Oh, I know. Well, the Kamala pop article. And as somebody who covers him, you know, I know he likes to tell jokes or try to tell jokes a lot. But do you have a sense that he really thinks that?

Like, does he really think that he's taking this huge risk right now and that he, you know, that's why he has to go all in? why he has to go all in. Yeah, it's hard to know what he's actually thinking there and how serious he is and whether he was just sort of just trying to be cheeky in that moment. Right. But what we do know is that Elon Musk is very, very focused on the current moment. What we've been told from people who are close to him is that he's all in on this effort to get Trump elected through the super PAC that he is largely funded. What is really fascinating about this moment that's worth mentioning is that this relationship between Trump and Musk wasn't always this rosy and collaborative and stuff. Going back to 2016, Musk went as far as saying that Trump was not fit to be president and it would be embarrassing if he was elected.

Back in 2022, he had said that like Trump should hang up his hat and sail into the sunset. And so who knows where Musk's political allegiance is going to lie during the next election or even in the next year or next couple of months even. Who knows? You know, he seems to be somebody who is also as transactional as Donald Trump. So it totally remains to be seen what happens here after the election. But what we do know is that Musk stands to gain a lot from a Trump presidency.

Okay. Trisha, I really want to thank you for coming by today. That was great. And I look forward to talking to you again. Yeah, thanks so much for the time. I really appreciate it. All right, that's all for today.

I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. We'll talk to you tomorrow.