Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, one of the wealthiest men in the world, said on Wednesday that he would not donate to either President Joe Biden or former President Donald Trump after meeting with Trump earlier this week.
Musk, who owns Tesla, SpaceX, and social media platform X, has harshly criticized the Biden administration in recent months, especially over the president’s handling of the illegal immigration crisis affecting cities across the nation. According to The New York Times, which cited three sources familiar with the matter, Trump met with Musk on Sunday in Palm Beach, Florida, as the former president’s campaign seeks to shore up support and financing for what promises to be a brutal general election campaign.
While the Times report didn’t detail what Trump and Musk discussed in their meeting, the billionaire took to X on Wednesday morning to clarify where he stands on his involvement in the run-up to the 2024 election.
“Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President,” Musk wrote.
Musk, who was on two of Trump’s advisory councils shortly after the former president entered the White House in 2017, has also been critical of the Republican leader over Trump’s policies on climate change and said he voted for Biden over Trump in 2020. Musk stepped down from his positions on Trump’s Manufacturing Jobs Initiative and the Strategic and Policy Forum later in 2017 after Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord.
“[I] Am departing presidential councils. Climate change is real. Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world,” Musk said at the time.
More recently, however, Musk has focused his criticisms on Biden for the administration’s immigration policies and the lax security at the U.S. southern border. Last month, Musk commented on Biden’s plan to prioritize giving citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants, saying it was a way “to create a permanent majority – a one-party state.”
“That is why they are encouraging so much illegal immigration,” Musk added. “Simple, yet effective.”
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Those comments came on top of statements Musk made in January when he said it’s clear the Biden administration “is actively facilitating illegal immigration.”
Musk has said he supports increasing legal immigration but is “against a massive number of unvetted people flooding into America, which any rational person should be.”
The Tesla owner, who was born in South Africa and became a U.S. citizen in 2002, said in 2022 that he had voted “overwhelmingly” for Democrats in the past but was switching to vote Republican in the 2022 midterm elections. He has not made any endorsements for the 2024 election.
The X owner reinstated Trump’s account on the platform last November after Trump was suspended indefinitely over his comments surrounding the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. Musk’s decision to allow Trump back on X, then Twitter, followed a poll he posted, asking users if the former president should be reinstated. The poll received more than 15 million votes, with 51% saying Trump should be allowed back on the platform.
“The people have spoken,” Musk wrote. “Trump will be reinstated.”
