Elon Musk has become both a surrogate for Donald Trump and a lightning rod for the Republican's campaign as the richest man in the world.
The CEO of electric carmaker Tesla and SpaceX, which has set its sights on human colonies on Mars, along with a controlling interest in the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), and a slew of tech and science companies, Musk has been out campaigning for and with Donald Trump.
An unlikely pair - the global warming skeptic and the prolific maker of electric cars - have found favor in each other's eyes, and Trump talks elaborately about the technological achievements by Musk, especially rockets; hand gestures were made to emphasize how his Starship booster rocket landed safely.
However, during most of his speeches when running for office, Trump ridiculed electric cars whose boosters were the entryways to other ventures since President Joe Biden and his vice president, Kamala Harris, have ensured there is a tax break upon buying them as a stride toward fighting climate change.
He mentioned that he will be designating the 53-year-old entrepreneur who hails from South Africa to be at the head of Department of Government Efficiency, which he suggested would reduce federal spending.
Speaking Sunday at a campaign rally here, Musk said he will slash $2 trillion off the government's $6.5 billion budget.
Democrats have portrayed him as the stalking horse for billionaires' takeover of government and eviscerating its social programs while adopting policies that would hit the middle and poorer classes hard.
Musk, who bought Twitter for about $45 billion in 2022 and renamed it X, allowed Trump, who had been banned from it, back on and loosened restrictions on postings, asserting that it was in the cause of free speech.
Many protested and threatened to leave X, but this continues to host President Joe Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and her campaign as well as many liberals and the Left since one of the largest megaphones for political propaganda as well as for misinformation.
Just as its omnipresence immunized X, Musk's bet is that if Harris wins, his government contracts would be very tough to untangle because they were deeply embedded in its programs in space and defense down through international aid and emergency preparedness. And of course, in furtherance of its fight against climate change through e-vehicles and electricity storage systems.
Musk is donating $200 million to a political action committee, America PAC, he has formed to win Trump, according to a legal loophole that would be permissible as long as the contribution is not directly made to candidate Trump.
The committee, which has received donations from other business owners, is conducting house-to-house campaigns, voter registration campaigns, and advertising for Trump while running anti-Harris advertisements.
A bundle of nervous energy who prances on stage like a kid, the eccentric entrepreneur has been campaigning for Trump in Pennsylvania, a state crucial for victory, holding rallies where politics mixes with far-out science and artificial intelligence.
Among his antics is a lottery for voters of the seven swing states who might swing the elections into his camp. Every day, there is a daily drawing for a voter whose declaration in support of the Constitution would net him the million-dollar prize.
Sounding innocuous, it smacks of subterfuge and illegality from the perspective of Democrats
President Joe Biden described the scheme as "totally inappropriate".
The Justice Department has told him that it might be illegal, and the prosecutor in Philadelphia has filed a suit to block it, citing his constitutional duty to resist "interference with the integrity of elections."
The pro-Trump supporter of this immigration policy by Musk says that Biden himself is one who is illegally immigrated to America because, the latter alleged, he had taken employment when already on the visa for his studies.
That has to do with the founding of a software company, which netted him $22 million when it sold, seeding his other ventures.
He didn't stay for Stanford, where he said he had his student visa, but Musk apparently already had moved on by then to an H-1B work visa.
A Wall Street Journal report that Musk has been in regular contact with Russia's President Vladimir Putin has drawn condemnation, and the head of NASA said it should be investigated because Musk's companies have contracts with government departments.
Musk's SpaceX has a NASA contract under the Artemis program to fly astronauts around the moon next year and land them in 2026.
The Coastal Commission of California rejected a SpaceX request to launch more rockets.
They are being sued by the entrepreneur who claims they did it for political purposes.
They both have the ideologies of laissez-faire capitalism and the reduction of the scope of government (though at their own benefit), and both have some personal similarities with them — they both have been much married, thrice each, although Musk divorced his third wife; they have been sued for sexual harassment, and both of them are known for vulgarity.
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