Elon Musk never lacked labels, but he probably never thought that one day, he would be presented as a "Trump savior."
But earlier this month, after Musk revealed that he had bought nearly 73.5 million shares of Twitter, once becoming the largest shareholder in the social media, people recalled the old Owner of the White House for more than a year, Donald Trump, and his blocked Twitter account.
— Although a few days later, Vanguard Group, one of the largest U.S. fund managers, announced an increase in twitter holdings, pushing Musk out of the throne as the largest shareholder, it did not prevent the ambitious star billionaire from planning his new business landscape. In mid-April, Musk submitted an enticing offer of $54.20 per share, intending to spend about $41.4 billion to buy Twitter, turn it into a private company, and fully own it under his command.
He even put a harsh message on the recent Twitter board: "My offer is my best and final offer, and if it is not accepted, I will have to consider my position as a shareholder." The outside world predicts that Musk's words are a threat to the board of directors, if his acquisition fails, it will sell Twitter shares sharply, causing the stock price to plunge, so that shareholders will suffer huge losses.
As soon as this remark came out, the public opinion field was in an uproar. CNN published a headline titled "How Will Musk Save Trump and the Republican Party?" The Washington Post called it the "savior of conservatives", and the Wall Street Journal simply believed that Musk's acquisition of Twitter could affect the outcome of the 2022 US midterm elections and the 2024 US election, and even affect the future of the United States.
Elon Musk, a "moderate" who registered himself as a neutral nonpartisan voter and insisted that "I'd rather not be involved in politics," sided with conservatives in dealing with Twitter's censorship — he called himself an "absolutist of free speech" and has always opposed social media interference with users' speech. After submitting his offer on April 14, he said in an interview with the media: "If people you don't like are allowed to say something you don't like, that's a good sign of whether there's freedom of speech." ”
"Twitter has the potential to become a platform for free speech around the world in the future." In a letter to Twitter's board chairman, Musk said, "It has extraordinary potential, and I'm going to unlock it." ”
This bold statement, in the eyes of worried Democrats and leftist voters, is likely to mean a "total lifting of the ban" on Twitter, including, of course, the unblocking of the accounts of Trump and his supporters. It may only be a matter of time before Trump's echoes and conspiracy theories recur in 2020, especially at the half-year-long node of the midterm elections that decided on the US New Deal in November 2022, Musk's acquisition of Twitter may become a major driver of the recovery of Trump and the Republican Party.
Will he be the key figure in the comeback of the Republican Party and Trump?
"I'd rather not be involved in politics"
For a long time, Elon Musk's political positions were erratic and elusive.
"I think Musk is adhering to an extreme, unfettered capitalism." GilleLebel, a professor of history at Harvard University, said, "He insists that the government really has no role in regulating economic activity, and that the political positions to which he belongs serve only his commercial interests." ”
Musk was less impressed with America's "left-right" dualistic political architecture because for the first two decades of his life, he was a South African who wanted to escape apartheid and didn't become a true American citizen until 2002. He was hungry for a free and egalitarian social system, but he scoffed at the trade union culture inherent in the West.
As a Twitter poisoner, he has more than 80 million followers and is also happy to use the platform to comment, and some groups of views or confrontation, or agree. Musk defines himself as a "moderate liberal" but shares the conservatives' opposition to the COVID-19 lockdown, calling the behavior "fascist," but openly choking on the right and sympathizing with immigrants.
He is keen to build electric cars because Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris climate agreement, angrily withdrew from Trump's business committee, but in a recent call for increased gas and oil extraction, and in early December he lashed out at Biden's infrastructure and social spending bill, criticizing it for giving unnecessary subsidies to the electric car industry and increasing the "crazy" federal budget deficit. Earlier this year, he simply called Biden a "humanoid wet sock puppet" because Biden did not acknowledge Tesla's dominance in the electric car industry.
Musk has always insisted on "free speech" but reacted fiercely to comments that offended him on social media, forcibly canceling Tesla orders because a venture capitalist criticized Tesla's products, and forcing a reporter to testify in a trial suing netizens for defamation. He moved Tesla's headquarters to Texas, the old "red state" (a pro-Republican state), to provide political contributions to some Republican governors, but also generously to California.
At a time when the "Black Lives" movement is booming, Musk slammed comedians who skewed to the left when performing comedies "sooner or later they will set themselves on fire" and believe that today's comedy shows have set too many "minefields". "Humor should be free, do we want a society without a sense of humor, just full of condemnation and hatred?" Musk said. But when Texas Gov. Greg Abbott claimed that Musk supported the state's anti-abortion laws, Musk was helpless to say: "I'd rather not be involved in politics." ”
On political contributions, elon Musk has donated $1.2 million to politicians, political parties, political action committees (PACs) and others since 2002, according to data collected by open Secrets, a nonprofit lobbying watchdog. The money was split almost equally between Democrats and Republicans, with the former receiving $542,000 and the latter receiving $574,500. His donations include many California state legislators, Tesla's former headquarters in California, and Texas, where SpaceX has long maintained rocket testing and launch facilities — a perfect echo of his definition of an "extreme capitalist" who has been thinking about his own business.
"These donations don't really show my personal beliefs. This is the basic cost of doing business in the United States. In a 2013 interview with The Huffington Post, Musk said unabashedly, "In order for Washington to hear your voice, you have to make some small contributions." ”
"Success also tweets, defeat also tweets"
Musk's attitude towards Trump is the same ambiguity.
In November 2016, when the dust was settling on the results of the US election, Musk said he did not believe Trump was the right person to enter the White House. "I don't think he's a good fit, he doesn't seem to have that kind of character that can represent America." Musk told CNBC.
However, on November 9 of that year, Trump defeated Hillary Clinton to become the 45th president of the United States. A month later, Musk agreed to join Trump's "Strategy and Policy" advisory panel for his new administration, which also included Uber CEO Travis Kalanick and PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooy.
In January 2017, Musk criticized Trump's travel ban on Muslim countries on Twitter, saying it was "not the best way to solve the country's challenges"; however, a month later, Musk refuted criticism of his cooperation with Trump as a liberal, saying that "people should let as many moderates as possible advise the president." Blind hatred is never the right answer."
In June 2017, Musk announced that he would leave Trump's Business Advisory Council, publicly breaking up with the conservative camp in protest against Trump's withdrawal of the United States from the Paris climate accord. "Climate change is a real thing, and leaving the Paris Agreement is not good for the United States or the world." Musk said on Twitter. The last time he made a public statement about the U.S. election was in 2019, and he supported a Democratic presidential candidate.
Musk has not been more polite to the maverick Trump than his successor, Joe Biden, but his left-right political stance does not prevent people from seeing him as a "moderate Trump."
Because Musk, like Trump, is also "success also Tweet, defeat also Tweet." His bold remarks on Twitter have earned him a lot of popularity for free, and his commercial value has soared, but he has also called a British cave rescue diver a "pedophile" on Twitter and David Beasley, director of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), has been criticized for publicly confronting global hunger.
In 2019, Musk was criticized by the SEC for tweeting that he had secured funding to take Tesla private (as a result of which Tesla's stock price soared). In the end, Musk was forced to resign as chairman of Tesla, and Musk and Tesla each paid $20 million to the SEC.
He and Trump's unabashed twitter has attracted them a large number of followers, and has also attracted overwhelming criticism and opposition.
"Get Trump back!"
Whether or not people agree to see Musk as a potential supporter of Trump, or another version of Trump, at least so far, the Republican Party has staked important chips on Musk — conservative politicians are constantly pressuring Musk to unblock Trump's Twitter account after acquiring Twitter.
"Will the new majority shareholder return free speech to Twitter," asked Marjorie Taylor Green, a Georgia Republican lawmaker and Trump "die-hard fan," whose Twitter account was temporarily blocked by Twitter earlier this year and "restored free speech will allow us all to beat them." ”
Monica Crowley, a former U.S. Treasury official, was more blunt: "He (Musk) should demand an end to censorship, reforms across the company, and the restoration of President Trump's account." She wrote on Twitter. Rep. Darrell Issa told POLITICO that Musk "could take Twitter in a better direction." "People who have been unfairly suppressed or censored because of Twitter's bias against conservative free speech will regain their freedom."
"Get Trump back!" Colorado Congressman Lauren Bobett said succinctly.
Raging public opinion has to worry left-wing Democrats and analysts. "My concern is that if Twitter becomes less aggressive in limiting misinformation on platforms, it will lead to more similar incidents of the Capitol Hill riots of January 6 last year, which will further undermine what we believe in democracy." Kevin Esterling, a professor of public policy and political science at the University of California, Riverside, worries.
And a former Trump adviser revealed that Trump can't wait to return to Twitter: "Twitter is his mouthpiece, Twitter is his way of controlling the media, it is his way of spreading information and tit-for-tat, and it is also his way of connecting with his supporters." ”
Author: Ye Chengqi
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