May21

electoral-vote.com

Dem 47

   

GOP 53

Musk Says He's Going to Spend "A Lot Less" on Politics

Elon Musk is in Qatar right now, for some sort of conference hosted by Bloomberg. We cannot discover the subject or the purpose of this conference; it's always a good sign when very rich people are meeting in a faraway country for opaque reasons. Perhaps the subject is "How to Win Friends and Influence People by Giving Them Luxury Jets." We don't know.

In any event, there ARE some reporters there, and they got to ask Musk some questions. And when they asked him about his future political activism, the billionaire said: "In terms of political spending I'm going to do a lot less in the future." He later added "I think I've done enough" and "[I]f I see a reason to do political spending in the future, I will do it, [but] I do not currently see a reason."

It goes without saying that Musk is both mercurial and dishonest. And so, he could be telling a fib, with an eye toward flying much more under the radar. Or, he could be telling the truth, as of the moment, but might well change his mind when the 2026 cycle heats up. On top of that, when you have the kind of coin that Musk has, "I am going to spend less" could still mean "I am going to spend a lot more than anyone other than a couple of hundred people could possibly afford to spend."

With all of that said, it strikes us as very plausible that this is for real. We have no inside information, of course, and Musk did not elaborate beyond the quotes we relay above. However, we did not even break a sweat coming up with 10 reasons he might be ready to move on:

1. Tesla, Possibility 1: It is not a secret that Tesla's brand has taken a big hit since Musk became a political activist, in part because he's behaved in a generally obnoxious fashion, and in part because the politics he's embraced run counter to the politics of much of his customer base. So, he could pull back in hopes of reversing some of the PR damage that's been done.
   
   
2. Tesla, Possibility 2: It is also not a secret that the Tesla Board of Directors is not happy with the damage Musk has done. It's at least possible they gave him an ultimatum: drop the political activism, or get dropped as CEO.
   
   
3. Budget Problems: Did you know that George Washington had to borrow money from friends to get to his inauguration in New York City? The first president was wealthy, yes, but his wealth was tied up almost entirely in not-very-liquid assets, namely land and enslaved people.
   
   Musk has a similar sort of problem. He's wealthy, yes, but it's on paper. What people like him often do—both because selling large blocks of stock tends to create investor unease, and because an alternate arrangement can create a very tax-advantageous situation—is take out loans against their stock holdings. But Musk has already taken out a bunch of loans against his Tesla stock, particularly to finance his purchase of Twitter. And that Tesla stock's price is currently trending downward. The point is, he might be a little cash-strapped these days. Not so much that he can't afford the necessities of life (or the luxuries, for that matter), but maybe enough that an outlay of $200 million or $300 million makes things a little tight.
   
   
4. Shiny Objects, Possibility 1: Musk has a very short attention span, and seems always to be on the lookout for something new and different to do. It was PayPal, then Tesla, then The Boring Company, then SpaceX, then politics. Maybe politics is not new and different anymore, and he's on the lookout for the next toy to play with.
   
   
5. Shiny Objects, Possibility 2: Alternatively, maybe Musk has decided that American politics is not new and different anymore, and that he will be moving on to mucking around in the politics of other nations (see below, for one possible example).
   
   
6. Quitting on Top: (Z) has a portion of a lecture that notes that, at the age of 40, D.W. Griffith made what is probably the most influential movie ever (The Birth of a Nation). The good news there is that, for the rest of your life, you're the person who made this very important movie. The bad news there is that, for the rest of your life, you'll never equal that achievement. Musk and his money may have singlehandedly re-elected Donald Trump. At very least, Musk gave Trump a huge assist. It is improbable that the South African will ever have as favorable a combination of circumstances and candidate than existed in 2024. So, he could be quitting while he's ahead.
   
   
7. Sore Loser: That said, if Musk IS quitting now, it's not entirely while he was ahead. He had the big success in electing Donald Trump, but Musk's last campaign—at least for now—is the train wreck in Wisconsin, where he went all-in, financially and otherwise, in the election for the Supreme Court, and saw his candidate lose by double digits. This might have caused the billionaire to decide to take his ball and go home. Or it could have taught him that money isn't everything in politics, and that past a certain level of spending, each dollar realizes significantly diminishing returns. This experience might even have caused Musk to conclude that his presence does more harm than good, though we kind of doubt it, because he does not seem to have that level of self-awareness.
   
   
8. Too Many Rules: Musk, like Trump, is very impatient and does not like playing by the rules. Musk, unlike Trump, is not president, and puts himself at much greater risk of civil and/or criminal actions if he pushes the boundaries too far. He already did a few things that were right on the border of "legal," like the million-dollar giveaways. If he continues, he might eventually cross the line and get himself in real legal trouble. And since most violations of election law are also state-level crimes, a pardon from Trump would not be helpful.
   
   
9. Pique, Possibility 1: To the extent there was any scuttlebutt yesterday, it's that Musk feels that Republicans have not been sufficiently grateful for his help. We're not sure if this is true or, if so, what exactly that might mean. But it's certainly plausible that his fee-fees are hurt and he's jumping ship as a result.
   
   
10. Pique, Possibility 2: Similarly, Musk might have soured on Donald Trump. Trump, of course, uses people until he has no need for them, at which point they are discarded. In the last month, Musk and DOGE have been increasingly on an island. It could be that he and Trump had words, or merely that Musk feels Trump is not being forceful enough in defending DOGE.

It took us just a few minutes to come up with these possibilities, and there are undoubtedly additional plausible possibilities we did not think of.

The point is that Musk definitely could be serious. If so, that has two obvious implications. The first is that Musk was one of five people—along with Timothy Mellon, Miriam Adelson, Richard Uihlein and Ken Griffin—who gave at least $100 million to Republicans in 2024. The loss of that kind of giving in 2026, when the GOP will likely be facing headwinds, would be a real setback (especially since Adelson tends to sit out midterms).

The second issue is that one of the biggest tools in Donald Trump's vote-whipping toolkit is the threat that Musk will fund a primary challenger to any Republican who fails to vote the party line. If that threat is gone, then it will be more difficult to enforce party discipline, and at the very time that the House is working on a very tricky budget bill. (Z)