The Republican nominee for the 2024 United States presidential election said he would consider naming Tesla CEO Elon Musk to a Cabinet position if he is victorious over Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
In a Reuters interview released on Aug. 19, Donald Trump said he “certainly would” consider putting Musk in his Cabinet or an advisory role starting in January 2025 “if he would do it.” The Republican nominee did not suggest which of the 15 executive departments — including Energy, Labor, Transportation, Commerce, and Treasury — he might put the Tesla CEO in charge of.
Trump’s comments came after the presidential candidate spoke with Musk in an Aug. 12 X Spaces discussion, delayed for 30 to 40 minutes due to what the Tesla CEO claimed was a “massive DDoS attack” on the platform. Former X employees have reportedly doubted Musk’s claims, as significant issues did not appear to affect other users at the time.
Slow walk to Trump
Musk did not initially support Trump in the 2020 election against then-former Vice President Joe Biden, who defeated the Republican candidate. In July 2022, the Tesla CEO tweeted that he did not “hate” Trump but that he should “hang up his hat and sail into the sunset.”
After an apparent assassination attempt against Trump in July, the Tesla CEO tweeted out an endorsement of the Republican and has since posted several times attacking policies from President Biden and Vice President Harris. Trump said at a July rally that he “loves” Musk and later called him a “very smart guy.”
“I’m for electric cars,” Trump said at an Aug. 3 rally. “I have to be, because Elon endorsed me very strongly, Elon. So I have no choice.”
Source: Elon Musk
Reports suggested Musk would donate $45 million monthly toward Trump’s reelection campaign. The Tesla CEO largely denied the amount of the contributions, saying he would be donating to a political action committee supporting the Republican candidate “at a much lower level.”
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Some high-level donors to Trump’s reelection campaign seem to end up with positions supporting the Republican candidate. On Aug. 16, his campaign said that Cantor Fitzgerald CEO Howard Lutnick and World Wrestling Entertainment co-founder Linda McMahon would co-chair his transition team if he succeeds in November.
On and off Twitter
Trump, then the US president, was kicked off X, known as Twitter at the time, under CEO Jack Dorsey in January 2021 after a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol building and attacked police officers. The company said at the time it had “permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
After Musk acquired the social media platform in October 2022, he conducted an online poll and reinstated Trump’s account. However, the former president still mainly posted on his Truth Social platform, which he launched in February 2022.
Trump returned to Twitter — by then rebranded to X — just once in August 2023, posting his mugshot after his surrender in the state of Georgia for allegedly attempting to subvert the will of voters in the 2020 election. Before the X Spaces discussion with Musk, the Republican candidate appeared to have returned to the platform for regular posts.
With roughly 77 days until the US presidential election, many polls show Trump neck and neck with Harris, with the Democratic candidate leading or within the margin of error in certain crucial battleground states. The two are scheduled to appear in a televised debate on Sept. 10.
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