
It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, until recently, they hadn’t really liked each other that much.
“I don’t hate Trump,” Elon Musk tweeted in July 2022. “But it’s time for him to hang up his hat and sail off into the sunset.”
The Tesla and SpaceX founder’s comments were sparked by a profane insult aimed at Donald Trump, who essentially called Musk a liar after accusing him of lying about who he voted for in the last presidential election.
“Elon is not going to buy Twitter,” Trump boasted to the crowd at a rally in Alaska.
Of course, Musk bought Twitter a few months later and endorsed President Trump’s Republican rival Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor who launched his presidential campaign with glitch-ridden chats in Twitterspaces.
But over the past few months, Musk’s relationship with Trump has not merely healed, but rather reached a state of warmth and stability.
The two are scheduled to engage in what is expected to be a cordial conversation on Monday, with the specific time, format and length still unknown, but the interview will likely air on Musk’s renamed X.
They will be hoping that the conversation reaches an audience beyond the active paying users who have dominated recent X discussions, and that it avoids the technical issues that have clouded DeSantis’ ill-fated campaign.
The relationship between tech titans and Republican candidates has been long-standing.
From blue to red
Musk, who became a U.S. citizen in 2002, said he has voted almost exclusively Democratic for decades.
But Musk has expressed displeasure with Biden over issues such as labor unions — he opposes organizing autoworkers — and what he feels is a cold shoulder. He wasn’t invited to the White House electric vehicle summit in 2021, even though Tesla is one of the world’s largest electric vehicle makers.
Under Biden, Musk’s companies have faced numerous federal investigations over hiring practices, his acquisition of Twitter and claims about Tesla’s self-driving features.
In a November 2023 interview with The New York Times, he said he likely wouldn’t vote for Biden again, but stopped short of endorsing Trump, saying “this is definitely a tough choice.”
After buying the company, Musk lifted the ban on the former president’s Twitter account.
And perhaps more importantly, during his tenure at the company, he has delved deeper into concerns that align neatly with the Trump campaign: government censorship and persecution, dissatisfaction with the media, opposition to immigration and anger toward “woke” ideology.
“He craves attention and is a political chameleon,” said Ryan Broderick, who writes for the internet culture newsletter Garbage Day.
Broderick said Musk’s online postings have changed dramatically from a few years ago.
“Up until about 2018, he was tweeting about neoliberalism and optimistic things and the Pride flag and stuff, but since then there’s been a pretty dramatic change,” he said.
Since taking charge of Twitter, Musk has increasingly become embroiled in political controversy and spreading inflammatory and sometimes outright fake news stories.

During the recent riots in the UK, he traded blows with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, claimed “civil war is inevitable” and shared a false post about “detention camps” in the Falkland Islands.
He also believes Trump’s evidence-free claims that there is widespread election fraud in the United States.
So far this year, Musk has tweeted false or misleading claims about voting 50 times, according to research by the Digital Hate Combat Center, an organization that filed a lawsuit against Musk earlier this year that was dismissed.
Additionally, he regularly interacts with far-right extremist and Trump supporter accounts on his platform, amplifying their influence.
Trump’s tech fan
At the same time, his Silicon Valley connections have connected him to Trump’s inner circle: Musk was part of the so-called PayPal Mafia, the shareholders who made their fortunes when the payment processor was acquired for $1.5 billion and went on to become prolific investors and company founders.
PayPal founder Peter Thiel was an influential Republican who later employed J.D. Vance at his venture capital firm, Mithril Capital Management, and later donated $10 million to help fund his Ohio Senate campaign.
Mr Musk met Mr Trump at his Florida home in March and two months later he hosted an “anti-Biden” dinner party, with guests including Mr Thiel and Rupert Murdoch, according to US reports.
Musk has donated to both Democratic and Republican politicians in the past, and although he claims he has not donated directly to presidential campaigns, he recently co-founded America PAC, a pro-Trump political action committee.
Political action committees can afford to spend huge amounts of money supporting candidates and causes, but Musk has said reports that he gives $45 million a month to PACs are exaggerated.
Still, his support for Trump was fully solidified when he tweeted “I fully support President Trump and wish him a speedy recovery” just minutes after the assassination attempt on the former president last month.
Meanwhile, Trump appears to have repaired his relationship with Musk.
“I have a lot of respect for Elon, and he respects me,” he said at a news conference Thursday.
“More than almost any person I know, Elon … loves this country and he loves the ideals of this country. But like me, he says this country is in great trouble and in great danger,” Trump said.
Musk has become a hero to a growing online following of young, mostly male supporters who may agree with Trump’s views but are reportedly not a particularly reliable voter.
The Trump campaign appears to be targeting this demographic: For example, the former president recently interviewed Adyn Ross, an “edgy” podcaster who was repeatedly banned from the streaming site Twitch for violating its code of conduct.
“Donald Trump is scrambling to find ways to reinvigorate his campaign,” Broderick said. “He’s a showman, and he understands that Elon Musk has the same instincts.”
But he questioned whether the two could get along in person.
“I think they’ll talk about or around each other, but it probably won’t mean much,” he said. “And someone might say something crazy.”
The BBC has contacted Mr X and the Trump campaign for comment.
The interview will be published online on Monday evening.
