Politics

On June 1, 2017 Musk resigned from two of President Trump's advisory councils after Trump said the United States would leave the Paris climate accord. He posted: "Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real." In May 2022 he said: "I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats historically. Overwhelmingly. I might never have voted Republican. Now, this election? I will." Two days later he posted that the Democrats "have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican." He has said that he supported Barack Obama and voted for Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden. California records obtained by NBC News show that in 18 years as an eligible voter there he cast ballots in only two elections and skipped the presidential elections in which Obama was on the ballot. The records do not show whom he voted for.

On March 6, 2020 Musk posted: "The coronavirus panic is dumb." On Tesla's earnings call on April 29 he said of orders to stay home: "this is fascist. This is not democratic. This is not freedom. Give people back their goddamn freedom." On May 11 he reopened Tesla's factory in Fremont, California, posting: "Tesla is restarting production today against Alameda County rules. I will be on the line with everyone else. If anyone is arrested, I ask that it only be me." Police said they had no plans to make arrests. County data later reported by The Washington Post showed about 450 reported COVID-19 cases among the plant's roughly 10,000 workers from May to December 2020.

President Biden celebrated automakers' electric vehicle goals at the White House without Tesla, then the world's largest maker of electric vehicles. Musk posted: "Yeah, seems odd that Tesla wasn't invited." Asked whether Tesla was left out because its workers are not unionized, the White House press secretary said: "Well, these are the three largest employers of the United Auto Workers, so I'll let you draw your own conclusions."

Musk has given his own account of the change. In December 2022 he posted: "The woke mind virus is either defeated or nothing else matters." In an interview in July 2024 he said that his transgender daughter, Vivian Wilson, was "dead, killed by the woke mind virus," and added: "I vowed to destroy the woke mind virus after that, and we're making some progress." NBC News reported that he called her transition the motivation for his push into conservative politics. Wilson told NBC News that he had not been tricked into approving her medical treatment, as he had said. She wrote: "He doesn't know what I was like as a child because he quite simply wasn't there."

On July 13, 2024, less than an hour after the attempt on Trump's life at a rally in Pennsylvania, Musk posted: "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery." On October 5 he joined one of Trump's rallies for the first time, at the same site, wearing a cap with Trump's slogan. "As you can see I am not just MAGA," he said. "I am Dark MAGA." He told the crowd that "this will be the last election" if Trump did not win.

On March 6, 2024 Musk posted: "Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President." On July 3 he made his first contribution, $5 million, to his own America PAC, which backed Trump. Later that month, after The Wall Street Journal reported that he had said he would give about $45 million a month, he said: "I am not donating $45 million dollars a month to Trump." By the end of the campaign he had put $239 million into America PAC. Separately, the Journal reported in October 2024 that Musk had secretly given more than $50 million in late 2022 to pay for ad campaigns by a group with ties to a former Trump aide, according to The Daily Beast's account of the report, which rested on people familiar with the matter.

Musk spent more than $290 million on the 2024 election, federal filings show. CBS News called him "the largest donor in the 2024 election cycle to either party." He was the only donor to a committee called RBG PAC, giving $20.5 million. CBS reported that its advertisements carried "misleading claims that Ginsburg held views on abortion that were similar to Trump's," a reference to the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. NPR reported that Building America's Future, which it described as "a dark money group funded by billionaire Elon Musk and others," paid for Facebook ads under the name "Progress 2028," and that "there is no such Harris-aligned initiative as Progress 2028." Experts told NPR that nothing about the ads was illegal.

At a campaign event in Pennsylvania on October 19, 2024, Musk said: "We're going to be awarding a million dollars randomly to people who have signed the petition every day from now until the election." NBC News reported, citing a source, that the Justice Department warned his committee that the giveaway might break federal law. When Philadelphia's district attorney sued to stop it, a lawyer for the committee told the court: "The $1 million recipients are not chosen by chance." The judge let the giveaway continue, and later wrote that the district attorney "failed to provide any evidence of misuse beyond mere speculation." Voters who had signed the petition then sued Musk for fraud in federal court in Texas. On August 18, 2026 the judge there refused to throw out the fraud claim, writing: "A jury could therefore infer that Musk knew the spokespeople would not be chosen randomly."

Status: On October 15, 2026 both sides told the court they had reached a settlement. Its terms are not public, and it needs the judge's approval. No court has found fraud. Musk and his committee deny wrongdoing, and the committee's filings list each prize as a payment to a "spokesperson consultant."

Musk and groups tied to him spent $21 million on the April 2025 election for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, the most expensive court race in U.S. history. Days before the vote he posted that he would "personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote." He deleted the post about 12 hours later and said the money would go to "spokesmen" for a petition. The state's attorney general sued to stop him, and the state Supreme Court unanimously refused to hear the case. Musk handed $1 million checks to two voters at a rally in Green Bay on March 30, 2025, where he took the stage in a yellow cheesehead hat. His candidate lost by 10 percentage points. "I expected to lose," he posted, "but there is value to losing a piece for a positional gain." In July 2026 the Wisconsin Elections Commission, made up of three Democrats and three Republicans, voted 5-1 to refer complaints to a prosecutor, finding probable cause that Musk broke state law with the first post. On August 25, 2026 the special prosecutor declined to file charges, saying: "Either way the first post is perceived, in the end nobody was paid anything of value for voting or promising to vote."

Status: No charges were filed. A civil suit asking a court to bar Musk from offering such payments was pending in Brown County when last reported, in July 2026.

On May 20, 2025 Musk said: "I think in terms of political spending, I'm going to do a lot less in the future." He added: "I think I've done enough," and: "If I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it. I do not currently see a reason." Five weeks later he gave $15 million to three Republican super PACs. In January 2026 he gave $10 million to a super PAC backing a Senate candidate in Kentucky. In July 2026 The New York Times reported that he had authorized his own committee to spend $100 million to $120 million on the midterm elections.

Musk was the largest known donor of the 2026 midterm elections. The Associated Press reported in October that he had given more than $276 million since July to help Republicans keep Congress, including $158 million to one Senate super PAC, "one of the largest known political donations in American history." OpenSecrets, which tracks political money, put his spending on federal races at $445 million, Reuters reported. On November 3, 2026 Democrats won control of the House and the Senate. Reuters counted the next day: "Just three of the 43 Republicans Musk backed for the House of Representatives won on Tuesday night, compared to 33 who lost." Six of the seven Republican Senate candidates he backed lost. In Texas, Reuters reported, he "came up empty after spending almost $230 million on the Senate contest." Early on November 4 he posted: "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time."

Status: The counts were not final when this was written. Seven of the House races had not been called in Reuters' tally, and the seventh Senate race, in Alaska, had not been called as of November 11, 2026.

The 2026 Senate race in Texas was the most expensive on record, and Musk was its largest donor. The Texas Tribune reported in October 2026 that he "appears to have poured nearly $190 million into the U.S. Senate race in his adopted home state." He gave $75 million to the Senate Republicans' main super PAC on September 9 and $83 million two weeks later, and each time the group moved the same amount the next day into a new committee backing the Republican candidate, Attorney General Ken Paxton. On November 3, 2026, the Democrat, state Rep. James Talarico, defeated Paxton, becoming the first Democrat to win a Senate seat in Texas since 1988. The Tribune reported that Republicans had "poured over $280 million into advertising, including over $200 million from Elon Musk."

The Georgia State Election Board found "sufficient evidence to suggest that America PAC violated" a state law on absentee ballot applications, in a case its minutes list as "Multi County Prefilled AB Applications Nov. 2024," and voted to issue the committee a letter of reprimand. The finding is against the committee, not Musk.

In his election-night speech on November 5, 2024, Trump said of Musk: "A star is born." The Washington Post reported, citing four people familiar with the matter, that Musk joined Trump's call the next day with Ukraine's president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Agence France-Presse reported that Musk appeared to have spent most of the following week at Trump's Florida estate and had embraced a title suggested for his role: "First Buddy." On November 12 Trump named him to lead what became DOGE (see the DOGE page).

In December 2024 Musk attacked a bipartisan bill to keep the government open in what the Associated Press counted as "more than 100 X posts that included multiple false claims." He said the bill gave members of Congress a 40% raise; the most it allowed was 3.8%. He shared a post that falsely claimed it provided $3 billion for a football stadium. He wrote: "We're funding bioweapon labs in this bill!" The bill funded biocontainment research laboratories, "not facilities for creating bioweapons." He also wrote: "Any member of the House or Senate who votes for this outrageous spending bill deserves to be voted out in 2 years!" Trump and Vice President-elect JD Vance then came out against the bill, which the AP said "stopped the bill in its tracks." Musk wrote: "The voice of the people was heard."

On June 30, 2025, as Congress voted on Trump's tax and spending bill, Musk wrote that members who supported it "will lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth." On July 5 he announced a new party: "Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom." He said it would target "2 or 3 Senate seats and 8 to 10 House districts." In August 2025 CNN reported that he "has not filed paperwork for a new party with the Federal Elections Commission." Replying to a user who cited a Wall Street Journal report that he had dropped the plan, Musk wrote: "Nothing @WSJ says should ever be thought of as true." In 2026 he was the largest known donor to the Republican effort to keep Congress.

In February 2025 The New York Times counted "more than 32 continuing investigations, pending complaints or enforcement actions" involving Musk's companies at 11 or more federal agencies where President Trump had fired or replaced officials. The Times "found no evidence that Musk directly ordered that an investigation into one of his companies be shut down or stalled." Some of those matters have since ended. That month the Justice Department dropped its own case accusing SpaceX of discriminating against refugees and people seeking asylum in hiring, in a way that means it cannot be brought again. In February 2026 the National Labor Relations Board dismissed its complaint that SpaceX unlawfully fired eight employees who had circulated a letter criticizing Musk, saying it lacked jurisdiction over the company. In May 2026 the Securities and Exchange Commission settled its suit accusing Musk of underpaying by more than $150 million for Twitter shares by disclosing his stake late. A trust in his name pays a $1.5 million penalty without admitting the allegations, the commission dropped its claim against Musk himself, and none of the money is returned. A judge approved the settlement in July 2026 while writing that she had "significant misgivings" about it (see the Twitter page).

After their feud in June 2025 (see the DOGE page), Musk returned to Trump's circle. In January 2026 he posted: "Had a lovely dinner last night with @POTUS and @FLOTUS." In May 2026 he traveled to China on Air Force One with the president. On October 8, 2026 Trump presented him with the National Medal of Science and called him "our modern-day Thomas Edison." The same day an administration official told Fox News that Musk "has been seen recently at the White House, in part because he's making good on promises to financially support Republican candidates in the 2026 midterm elections."

Musk said repeatedly in 2024 that Democrats were bringing in immigrants to win elections. In February he wrote that Democrats do not deport people in the country illegally "because every illegal is a highly likely vote at some point." PolitiFact rated that False, writing that he "provided no evidence" and that immigrants "cannot vote until they become citizens, a process that takes several years." In September he posted: "The Dem administrative state is flying millions of future voters directly into swing states," and: "They are importing voters. It is obvious." CBS News reported that voting by noncitizens "is not widespread" and is already illegal in national elections. In March 2024 Musk told the journalist Don Lemon that he disavows the so-called great replacement theory. The Associated Press reported that in the same interview he argued, "on shaky evidence," that illegal immigration had skewed elections toward Democrats.

At a campaign event near Philadelphia on October 17, 2024, Musk said of Dominion voting machines: "It is weird that, I think, they were used in Philadelphia and in Maricopa County [in Arizona] but not in a lot of other places. Doesn't that seem like a heck of a coincidence?" Dominion answered: "Fact: Dominion does not serve Philadelphia County." Days later Musk posted that Michigan had more registered voters than eligible citizens. Michigan's secretary of state replied: "Let's be clear: @elonmusk is spreading dangerous disinformation. Here are the facts: There aren't more voters than citizens in Michigan." Musk answered: "Jocelyn Michelle Benson, shame on you for blatantly lying to the public!" The Associated Press found that the rolls included inactive records the law did not yet allow the state to remove, and that the number of active voters "is far less than those who are eligible to vote."

After Hurricane Helene, Musk posted that private relief flights to North Carolina were being blocked by the Federal Aviation Administration, writing: "The level of belligerent government incompetence is staggering!!" Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg replied: "No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn't block legitimate rescue and recovery flights. If you're encountering a problem give me a call." Musk later wrote: "Thanks for the call. Hopefully, we can resolve this soon."

The Center for Countering Digital Hate, a nonprofit that Musk's company X had sued, counted 87 posts by Musk between January 1 and October 23, 2024 "promoting false or misleading claims about the presidential election," with 2 billion views. It counted posts that repeated claims fact-checkers had rated false or misleading. A federal judge had dismissed X's suit against the group that March. A spokesperson for X told Reuters that its Community Notes feature is more effective than warning flags at helping people identify misleading content. A separate count by CBS News found nearly 3.3 billion views of Musk's posts "fueling doubts about election security issues."

After the 2024 election, posts on social media claimed that Musk had used his Starlink satellites to change the vote count. The Associated Press reported: "These claims are unfounded. Election officials, including from multiple swing states, told The Associated Press that their voting equipment doesn't use Starlink and is not even connected to the internet." After the 2026 midterm elections, in which most of the candidates he backed lost, Musk posted: "Guess my election-interfering space lasers didn't work this time."

At a rally on the day of Trump's inauguration, Musk thanked the crowd, "slapped his hand on his chest, extended his arm straight out and up with his palm facing down," then turned and made a similar gesture the other way, the Associated Press reported. "My heart goes out to you," he said. NPR reported: "To many observers, Musk's arm movement appeared to be a Nazi salute." Ruth Ben-Ghiat, a history professor at New York University, wrote: "It was a Nazi salute and a very belligerent one too." The Anti-Defamation League called it "an awkward gesture in a moment of enthusiasm, not a Nazi salute." A researcher who tracks online hate told the AP: "I'm skeptical it was on purpose." Musk wrote that night: "Frankly, they need better dirty tricks. The 'everyone is Hitler' attack is sooo tired." Three days later he posted puns on the names of Nazi leaders, and the league's chief replied that it is "inappropriate and offensive to make light of" the Holocaust. On a podcast released on February 28, 2025 Musk said the gesture "was obviously meant in the most positive spirit possible," and: "Just to be clear, I'm not a Nazi."

Musk told Vanity Fair in 2019 that Jeffrey Epstein "tried repeatedly to get me to visit his island. I declined." Emails released by the Justice Department on January 30, 2026 show Musk discussing visits with Epstein in 2012 and 2013. When Epstein asked how many people would need the helicopter to the island, Musk replied: "Probably just Talulah and me. What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?" The Guardian reported that the exchanges do not appear to have led to a visit, and that Musk "has not been accused of wrongdoing." Musk wrote that he had never "set foot on his creepy island or done anything wrong at all."

On December 20, 2024 Musk wrote on X: "Only the AfD can save Germany." Germany's domestic intelligence agency then had the party under observation for suspected extremism. Chancellor Olaf Scholz replied that freedom of opinion "also goes for multibillionaires, but freedom of opinion also means that you can say things that aren't right and don't contain good political advice." The following week Musk wrote in a German newspaper that portraying the party as right-wing extremist "is clearly false," and the paper's opinion editor resigned in protest. In January 2025 he told an AfD campaign rally by video that there is "frankly too much of a focus on past guilt and we need to move beyond that." NPR called the remark "an apparent reference to the Nazi era." He added: "Children should not be guilty of the sins of their parents, let alone their parents, their great-grandparents." The AfD placed second in the February 2025 election with 20.8% of the vote.

Status: In May 2025 the agency classified the AfD as a "right-wing extremist" organization. On February 26, 2026 a court in Cologne ruled that the agency cannot use that label while the party's legal challenge is heard. The main case has not been decided.

In early January 2025 Musk posted repeatedly about the sexual abuse of girls by gangs of men in English towns. He accused Prime Minister Keir Starmer of failing to bring perpetrators to justice when Starmer was England's chief prosecutor, from 2008 to 2013, and wrote: "Starmer must go and he must face charges for his complicity in the worst mass crime in the history of Britain." He called a government minister, Jess Phillips, a "rape genocide apologist," and posted a poll on the proposition: "America should liberate the people of Britain from their tyrannical government." Starmer replied: "When the poison of the far-right leads to serious threats to Jess Phillips and others, then in my book, a line has been crossed." In June 2025 Starmer ordered a national inquiry into the gangs, which he had earlier declined to do. The Independent reported that pressure over the issue "intensified" after Musk's posts.

Speaking by video to a London rally organized by the activist Tommy Robinson, which The Guardian described as far-right, Musk said: "There's got to be a dissolution of parliament and a new vote held." He told the crowd: "Whether you choose violence or not, violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die, that's the truth, I think." He called it "a message to the reasonable centre." Police said 26 officers were injured at the rally. Prime Minister Starmer's spokesman said: "the last thing that British people want is dangerous and inflammatory language which threatens violence and intimidation on our streets." The government said it had no plans to sanction Musk. In November 2025 Robinson, cleared by a London court in a separate case, thanked Musk, who he said had covered his legal fees.

After an Italian court ruled against the government's plan to hold migrants in Albania, Musk wrote on X that "these judges need to go," and then: "This is unacceptable. Do the people of Italy live in a democracy or does an unelected autocracy make the decisions?" Italy's president, Sergio Mattarella, replied that anyone "about to assume an important role of government in a friendly and allied country, must respect its sovereignty and cannot attribute to himself the task of imparting prescriptions." Musk's representative in Italy said that Musk "expresses his respect" for the president and the Italian Constitution but insists on his right to free expression.

Musk, who was born in South Africa, wrote on X: "Very few people know that there is a major political party in South Africa that is actively promoting white genocide." President Cyril Ramaphosa answered, without naming him: "we should challenge the completely false narrative that our country is a place in which people of a certain race or culture are being targeted for persecution." Musk was referring to a song sung at a rally of an opposition party. The Associated Press noted that a South African court ruled in 2022 that the song was not hate speech, because there was no proof it incited violence.