Elon Musk indicates he’s ‘going all in’ on financing the GOP again ahead of midterms
Sign up for the daily Inside Washington email for exclusive US coverage and analysis sent to your inboxGet our free Inside Washington emailGet our free Inside Washington emailIn the aftermath of his spectacular falling out with President Donald Trump last year, Elon Musk blasted the Republican Party as a corrupt force that was "bankrupting" the United States of America.But now, after months in the political wilderness, the volatile tech baron has indicated that he will once again devote his enormous fortune to electing GOP politicians, this time ahead of the midterm elections in 2026."America is toast if the radical left wins," declared Musk on X Thursday. "They will open the floodgates to illegal immigration and fraud. Won’t be America anymore."Musk's post quoted, and seemingly confirmed, another post from a conservative influencer who claimed that Musk was "going all-in" on funding Republicans this year.That echoed reports from December that Musk had begun cutting "big checks" for congressional Republicans following a reconciliation dinner with Vice President J.D. Vance.It is all a far cry from Musk's promise last July to plough his billions into a new "America Party" designed to break what he described as a bipartisan consensus in favor of government borrowing.Elon Musk has indicated that he will once again devote his enormous fortune to electing GOP politicians (Getty)"When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste and graft, we live in a one-party system, not a democracy," Musk claimed at the time. "Today, the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom."Those plans quickly faltered as one of the world's foremost over-promisers, who has a long history of failed projects and missed deadlines, ran up against the boring, difficult work of actually getting a new party off the ground.By August, The Wall Street Journal was reporting that Vance had persuaded Musk to back off his plans for a third party, causing him to cancel a planned call with political gurus. On Monday, The Washington Post further detailed Vance's months-long backroom effort to patch up the relationship between Trump and Musk, though the peace reportedly remains delicate.Musk, currently the world's richest human with an estimated fortune of $726 bilion, donated more than $290 million to help elect Trump and other Republican candidates in the 2024 election cycle.But the two men's relationship explosively unraveled last June after Musk claimed that Trump was covering up his alleged ties to Jeffrey Epstein and Trump threatened to revoke all Musk's government contracts.In September the two men chatted and shook hands at a grand memorial service for Charlie Kirk, though Trump was quick to downplay the significance of the moment.Two months later, Trump was seen giving Musk a friendly pat on the arm at a dinner honoring Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (whom U.S. officials say personally ordered the brutal murder of an American-resident journalist in 2018).
