Elon Musk recently said that he is “on the fence” about whether or not he would support a second bid for former President Donald Trump to become the president.
The world’s richest man made this comment while the January 6th committee is in the midst of their hearing testimony about how Trump tried to block the certification of then-President-elect Joe Biden.
Musk, the CEO of both Tesla and SpaceX, did not commit to a position on Trump’s reelection campaign while he was interviewing with Bloomberg editor-in-chief John Micklethwait. They spoke during the Qatar Economic Forum.
“I think I’m undecided at this point on that,” Musk said when asked about a second term for Trump.
Elon Musk did ridicule President Biden, calling him a “damp sock puppet in human form.” He broke with the Democratic Party in May after they became in his words the “party of division and hate.”
And he also declared that he is preparing to spend between $20 million to $25 million on a new super PAC. He has hinted in the past that this PAC would be aimed at supporting campaigns of politicians who were in the center politically.
Some say that Musk is following the trail into politics that has been left by tech guru and Republican investor Peter Thiel. But Musk has not ruled out pouring his money into the campaign of a centrist Democrat.
The Wall Street Journal said that Musk was encouraged to purchase Twitter for $44 billion by Thiel. He co-founded PayPal with Musk and he was the first person in Silicon Valley to back Trump in the 2016 presidential campaign.
After Musk made the offer to Twitter, he moved to reinstate the former president’s Twitter account. This was taken away from Trump after they said he incited his followers to act violently before the January 6 attack on the Capitol.
Some believe that Musk’s $25 million super PAC could be spent on Trump, but others think it could go toward a Ron DeSantis campaign. He has made comments recently that he is leaning toward the Florida governor as a candidate.
It may have been because they were in the conservative land of Qatar, but Micklethwait from Bloomberg did not ask Musk about DeSantis’ campaign against the LGBTQ community or his fight with Disney over the “Don’t say gay” issue.
In the conservative state of Texas, Musk recently voted for Mayra Flores, a GOP candidate and a known sympathizer of the QAnon movement. She is running to represent the district where Musk’s SpaceX company is headquartered.
Micklethwait did ask Musk about whether he was concerned with the anti-China policies that would come with either Trump or DeSantis. These policies could harm his connection with the regime in Beijing.
“No, I don’t think so,” he simply replied.
Musk’s factory in Shanghai is said to be the pearl of Tesla’s crown. It is the most productive, efficient, and profitable. It has been reported that Tesla is planning to build a second plant in another district of Shanghai.
Due to the present global crisis, Musk has had to lay off employees in China, but he predicted that a year from now there would be an even higher employee count in both hourly and salaried positions. For now, Tesla is cutting one-tenth of its salaried staff over the next three months.
There is a pending lawsuit launched by U.S. employees that alleges Tesla failed to observe labor laws, but Musk said that was a small lawsuit with minor consequences.
He’s the world’s richest man, and many eyes will be on his candidate of choice. Right now, he’s on the fence with Trump.
