The Musk-Trump fight blows up a critical alliance in American politics
Elon Musk said Thursday that President Donald Trump couldn't have won a second term without his help, a claim that can't be easily proven or disproven. What's clear is Trump's campaign relied on him heavily.
Last year, Trump tapped Musk, the world's wealthiest person, to essentially lead his campaign's ground operation in key battleground states like Pennsylvania. The more than $290 million that the multibillionaire plowed into the 2024 election to boost both Trump and congressional Republicans made him the largest publicly disclosed donor in federal contests last year.
Thursday's war of words between the two billionaires marked the implosion of a candidate-donor relationship with no precedent in American politics. And it renewed a debate about whether Musk really was as decisive in Trump's 2024 victory as he said in one post, writing: 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election, Dems would control the House and the Republicans would be 51-49 in the Senate.'
'It's incredibly arrogant to say that, but it's probably true,' said Dennis Lennox, a Republican strategist in the battleground state of Michigan.
Musk and Trump capitalized on a 2024 decision by the Federal Election Commission that granted campaigns the ability to coordinate with outside political action committees on paid canvassing.
Musk's America PAC spent more than $97 million on canvassing and field operations alone, federal records show – with tens of millions more going to digital ads, texting and phone calls as Musk's team worked to turn out voters on Trump's behalf in the final stretch to Election Day.
Lennox listed several reasons for Trump's win in Michigan and other key states, including the public response to assassination attempts on Trump and the tumult on the Democratic ticket that saw then-Vice President Kamala Harris replace former President Joe Biden as the party's standard-bearer.
But Lennox also credits Musk's use of X, the social media platform he purchased and renamed from Twitter, to amplify pro-Trump messages, as well as the try-everything strategy of the Musk operation.
'It's hard to quantify exactly what America PAC did and didn't do in the election because their effort was, literally and figuratively, throwing everything and the kitchen sink against the blue wall in hopes that something cracked through to deliver Trump a victory.'
Musk's political operation didn't just knock on doors in key states. It launched a sweepstakes that offered $1 million giveaways to voters in swing states that drew legal scrutiny.
Then there was Musk himself. He appeared with Trump at an October rally in Butler, Pa., the site of the first assassination attempt against Trump months earlier. He all but camped out in Pennsylvania in the final days of the campaign, hosting his own town halls with voters.
Musk spoke at a rally after Trump's second inauguration and took on a high-profile role leading Trump's Department of Government Efficiency, overseeing an effort to slash the size of government that fell short of Musk's originally stated goals.
His star had been falling with Trump prior to his departure from government and his criticism of Trump's signature legislative package, attacks that strained their relationship and led to Thursday's public fight.
And there were also signs that he didn't have the same political touch.
Musk deployed many of his 2024 tactics in April's Wisconsin Supreme Court race, spending more than $20 million to boost a conservative candidate and headlining his own pre-election rally in the state.
This time, his candidate lost by 10 points.
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