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    HomeBusinessHow Elon Musk became a Trump servant

    How Elon Musk became a Trump servant

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    The richest man in the world was once a tech visionary, space pioneer and Democrat. Now he is Donald Trump's favorite, donor and propagandist. Elon Musk himself explains the reasons for the political reversal best.

    Hardly anything describes a person as much as his own words. So if you want to understand the astonishing development of the richest man in the world, you shouldn't just ask his friends, companions and critics. He should look at what he himself has said in the past.

    For Elon Musk, this is both easier and more difficult than for most people: the Tesla boss has posted on Twitter/X around 76,000 times since 2019. The Wall Street Journal took the trouble and evaluated all of these tweets using the same technology that is used in the AI ​​program ChatGPT. The result is the astonishing profile of a man who has changed more than almost any other public figure. Musk has gone from an apolitical electric car pioneer to a political junkie. From Democrat to Republican. From geeky model entrepreneur to radical Trump disciple.

    In February 2019, Musk announced on Twitter: “I'm openly moderate. There, I said it.” On July 13, 2024, after the assassination attempt, he posted: “I fully support President Trump.” There are five and a half years between the two sentences – and a journey from one end of the political spectrum to the other. During this time, Musk radicalized himself in a public metamorphosis. He is now pumping money into Trump's election campaign and placing millions of followers at his feet as a willing media partner. Apparently not just out of inner conviction. But because he is also pursuing his own financial interests.

    From joker to chief Corona propagandist

    Five years ago, Musk mainly tweeted about his own companies, Tesla and SpaceX, and occasionally cracked a few jokes. He now posts political posts several times a day. Since 2019, the number of his political statements has increased more than two hundred times. While two-thirds of Musk's tweets in July five years ago were about cars or space, in July of this year 60 percent of Musk's tweets were about politics, the media, news or cultural issues. On average, Musk now posts about 61 times a day. Five years ago there were just nine tweets per day. If printed, all of his chats would form a book about twice as long as the Bible.

    The first signs of the drift to the right emerged during the pandemic. Musk had previously argued with investors on Twitter, insulted critics as child molesters and received a million-dollar fine from the US Securities and Exchange Commission for market manipulation for spreading false information. In 2020, however, he mutated into a kind of Corona chief rebel. He called the lockdown “fascist” and promptly ignored all instructions from the California government to shut down his factories.

    What is striking is that Musk increasingly began to discover his political side after completing the purchase of Twitter and renaming the platform to X in October 2023. So it's pretty safe to say that Musk wasn't just about saving everyone's right to free speech. He also wanted to acquire a channel where he could broadcast his own opinions undisturbed and unfiltered.

    In retrospect, much of Musk's entry into the social media business seems like the revenge campaign of an aggrieved person. He had become increasingly alienated from the Biden administration in the months before he joined. He called the US President a “sock puppet” of the unions after he only invited car manufacturers with employee representation to the electric car summit in the White House. Tesla was not one of them.

    Conviction or loner?

    In May 2022, five months before the Twitter takeover, Musk officially announced his friendship with the Democrats: “In the past, I voted for the Democrats because they were the party of philanthropy,” Musk wrote on Twitter. He donated money to Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden and voted for both of them. “Because of unprovoked attacks from leading Democrats and their cold shoulder to Tesla and SpaceX, I will be voting Republican in November.”

    With his turn to right-wing politics, Musk not only serves his own economic interests. It is also shaped by painful personal experiences. The most important was certainly his daughter's sex change. She changed her last name in 2022, broke away from Musk and, according to court documents, no longer wants to be related to her “biological father” in any way. Musk was barely present as a father, was “cold, heartless and narcissistic” and teased and humiliated her as a child because of her queer identity.

    The break was a central motivation for Musk to become more involved in right-wing politics. “I have effectively lost my son,” Musk said. He was deceived into signing the gender reassignment papers. Now his child is “dead,” “killed by the woke brain virus.”

    Since then, Musk has not only committed himself to the fight against the alleged gender madness, but also against the alleged discrimination against whites and against illegal immigration. Musk is now openly using his platform to cast judgment on his political opponents: it was only in February that he had a public vote on whether impeachment proceedings should be initiated against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas. After an election victory, Trump may now even want to bring the Tesla boss into the cabinet. This would complete Musk's transformation.

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