“The White House assistant learned about Biden’s withdrawal from the election by swiping Musk, the owner of Media Platform
After an "attempted assassination", Musk said that he "fully supports President Trump" and publicly endorsed the latter for the first time. On July 13, local time, Musk posted a number of posts on his social media platform about the Pennsylvania shooting incident to express his support for Trump. “The last tough-guy candidate in the United States was Theodore Roosevelt,” Musk wrote. In 1912, Roosevelt was shot and assassinated by radicals during a campaign event. A bullet hit him in the chest, but Roosevelt still insisted on finishing his speech.
Although Musk is now clearly opposed to Biden, he hesitated for a long time on whether to support Trump. Musk also briefly supported Republican DeSantis before completely switching to Trump.
Just two years ago, Musk and Trump were openly attacking each other. At that time, Musk ridiculed Trump that he was too old and should "hang up and leave." But the frosty relationship has been rapidly repaired in recent months as Trump once again locked up the Republican nomination. U.S. media quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that Musk, who had earlier stated that he would not provide financial support to any candidate, will donate $45 million per month to the "American Political Action Committee" (America Pac) that supports Trump. The action committee was only established in June this year and is dedicated to canvassing votes in "swing states". If Musk keeps up his donation frequency, it will be his largest donation so far this election cycle.
This year, Musk continues to top the "Bloomberg Billionaires Index" with a net worth of more than US$200 billion. His business empire spans electric vehicles, aerospace, telecommunications, artificial intelligence and social media. The recent shift reflects Musk's efforts to amass the political capital commensurate with his wealth. The media revealed earlier that if Trump wins the election, he may repay Musk's support by hiring him as a policy adviser.
Abandon Biden and support Trump
Since his space exploration company SpaceX and electric car company Tesla have long benefited from government contracts and subsidies, Musk has always regarded himself as a centrist in the past to avoid falling into partisan disputes.
Regarding voting for Biden in the 2020 election, Musk said that it was a "reluctant" choice. After Biden took office, although the two have been closely connected on various issues such as climate, infrastructure and even global security, they have always had bad tempers.
Biden believes electric vehicles are critical to combating climate change and is a supporter of labor unions. In the "Rebuilding a Better Future" bill, Biden proposed various policies to encourage consumers to buy electric vehicles, including government funding to support the construction of charging infrastructure and additional subsidies for electric vehicles produced by unions. Most of these preferential policies benefit manufacturers with union organizations, and Tesla benefits less from them. Biden did not invite Musk to attend the electric vehicle summit at the White House because of Musk's clear opposition to the government's subsidy program and his insistence on not establishing a union at Tesla. Musk has always been bitter about this cold reception, repeatedly mocking Biden as a "puppet of the union" and "not a real president."
Musk’s dissatisfaction with the Biden administration is not just due to differences in electric vehicle subsidy policies. Musk has made it clear he opposes the Biden administration's proposals to increase taxes on the wealthiest Americans and impose minimum taxes on profitable U.S. companies. Tesla has paid little to no federal income tax in the past due to its losses. In addition, during Biden's term, many government agencies, including the Department of Justice, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, and the National Labor Relations Board, initiated reviews of Musk's companies, further exacerbating Musk's hostility to Biden and the Democratic Party.
Over the past four years, Musk’s ideology has shifted sharply to the right.Since the midterm elections two years ago, Musk has publicly stated that he would take a "different route" and vote for the Republican Party. "Biden seems to have pushed away a natural ally." The New York Times commented, warning that Biden may gain an "unusually powerful enemy" as a result.
Musk has 180 million fans on social media platforms, and he often changes news headlines with a single post. After acquiring Twitter, Musk became more vocal in his criticism of Democrats and Biden. In the first five months of this year, Musk published nearly 40 posts criticizing Biden on social media platforms, mainly attacking the latter's advanced age and immigration and medical policies. During the same period, Musk published more than 20 posts defending Trump, claiming that the latter was unfairly treated by the media and prosecutors in criminal cases.
Given past frictions, Musk did not move quickly toward Trump after parting ways with the Democratic Party. In 2017, Musk resigned from his part-time position on the White House Business Advisory Council because of Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement. Trump mocked Musk as a "master of nonsense" at a public rally after leaving office, and Musk responded on social media that Trump had reached an age to retire from the political stage.
However, despite the tense relationship between the two parties, Musk immediately lifted the "seal" on Trump after acquiring Twitter. In January 2021, Twitter and Facebook announced they would ban Trump's accounts for allowing his followers to violently storm the U.S. Congress.
Before the primary election for the Republican nomination, Musk tended to support Florida Governor DeSantis. In May last year, Musk and DeSantis held a live discussion on social media, which kicked off the latter's formal candidacy. There was widespread speculation at the time that Musk would donate to DeSantis' super PAC, but that ultimately fell through.
In March of this year, after Trump locked up the party's nomination, he held secret talks with Musk and other wealthy Republican donors in Florida. With large amounts of campaign funds spent on legal fees, the Trump team is desperate to find political donations for the election. Since then, Musk's estranged relationship with Trump has quickly grown closer, even to the point where they talk on the phone several times a month. "Politics is tribal, not driven by logic." Musk confirmed the meeting on social media afterwards, but insisted that he would not donate to Trump.
The Biden campaign seems to believe that distancing itself from billionaires will bring political benefits and help win over working-class votes in "battleground states." In May of this year, after news broke that Trump was considering hiring Musk as an adviser, Biden’s campaign team commented, “Trump sold the United States to pay his legal fees and keep himself in power, and all the people like Elon Musk are selling out. Billionaires like Lon Musk view him as a fool. They know that by writing him a campaign check, Trump will cut their taxes while cutting Social Security and other benefits for the middle class."
" The elites let me down”
In the first half of this year’s campaign, Biden used his status as the current president to maintain a fundraising advantage over Trump. However, by the time Musk donated, Trump had reversed his earlier financial disadvantage. As the election enters the "money-spending" stage of massive TV ads and intensive rallies to mobilize voters, Musk's "icing on the cake" will inject more vitality into the Republican Party's propaganda and grassroots mobilization.
After sending away the last competitor in the party, Trump was able to form a fundraising committee with national and state Republicans. Donors from Wall Street have also begun to increase their financial support for Trump. In Silicon Valley, the stronghold of liberals, some donors are also moving closer to Trump because of issues such as technology regulation and taxation. On the other hand, Trump's criminal conviction in May galvanized donors. Within 48 hours of his conviction, Trump's campaign raised nearly $70 million in donations, closing the gap with Biden.
According to the latest campaign finance reports submitted by both camps to the Federal Election Commission, as of June 30, the balance of Biden's campaign account was approximately US$96 million, while Trump's campaign account still had US$128 million remaining. The two also rely on support from their respective parties and joint fundraising committees. Including these groups, Trump's available funds reached $281 million at the end of June, surpassing Biden's $237 million. The
report shows that the huge spending difference has helped Trump expand his financial advantage. Until June, Biden's fundraising ability was still stronger than Trump's, but his campaign team also invested much more than Trump. According to reports, the Biden team spent as much as $60 million in June, six times more than the Trump team. Since March, the Biden campaign has spent tens of millions of dollars on advertising every month, spending as much as $48 million in June alone. But judging from polls, these efforts have yet to bring about substantial changes.
Some big Democratic donors put away their checkbooks, dissatisfied with Biden's poor performance in the televised debates. Hollywood star George Clooney raised $28 million in donations for Biden in May, but he recently wrote in the media that Biden has no chance of winning in November and continuing to be elected will only cause the Democratic Party to lose Congress. The New York Times quoted people familiar with the matter as saying that if Biden refuses to give up his seat, Democratic donors may freeze US$90 million in donations.
"The elites let me down." Biden later shot back in a television interview that only voters can decide the Democratic candidate and said small-dollar donors would support him in victory.
According to the Biden campaign, June was the best month for fundraising, with a total of $127 million raised, nearly two-thirds of which came from small donors with donations of $200 or less. Within four days after the debate, the Biden team raised $38 million, nearly 80% of which came from small donors.
According to research by opensecrets, a U.S. political donation database and nonpartisan organization, Biden raised a much lower proportion of funds from small donors in the early stages of the campaign, when small donations accounted for about 43%. The agency's research also noted that Biden raised more money than Trump from small donors in this year's race, which was the opposite of what happened when the two faced off in 2020.
Since the 1970s, it has been a dream of American campaign finance reformers to make politicians more dependent on small donations from individual voters. They believe this would offset the influence of big business and wealthy elites on policy. The development of social media has effectively promoted the growth of small donations in the 21st century. The study found that there were 5.2 million small-dollar donations in the 2006 election cycle, and by 2020, that number had soared to 195 million. According to research on the motivations of electoral donors by Etan Hersh, a professor of political science at Tufts University in the United States, small donors tend to act from the heart, while large donors tend to act more rationally. Data on small-dollar donors has long been viewed as an indicator of grassroots voter enthusiasm. In addition, because small donors can make repeated donations without worrying about exceeding the donation limit, this group is also regarded as a sustainable source of funds.
However, the "big money attractors" of small donations are often candidates with more radical ideologies in the two parties, such as senior Democratic Senator Sanders and Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, both of whom lack political party support. Supported by the establishment and big business groups, but a large amount of election funds were raised from small donors. In addition, voters who are willing to support the campaign over and over again are mostly the most partisan groups. Biden is a centrist in the Democratic Party and has relied on support from large donors and establishment forces in the past.
The increase in small donations ultimately failed to offset the impact of the loss of large donors to Biden. After more than two weeks of "internal strife in the Democratic Party," Biden announced his withdrawal from the presidential election and supported 59-year-old Vice President Harris to take over the campaign. Shortly after, Biden’s campaign submitted an application to the Federal Election Commission to change its name to the “Harris Campaign for President.”
Even though Harris won Biden's endorsement, that doesn't mean she will win the nomination outright.Only by gaining enough delegates at the Democratic Party Convention in August can Harris officially replace Biden. But Harris has a huge advantage over other potential contenders: She has direct access to $96 million in the Biden campaign's account. "The campaign account actually belongs to both Biden and Harris." Former Federal Election Commission legal counsel Daniel Weiner pointed out that the money was raised for Biden and Harris, and Harris could use it for her own presidential campaign.
The news of Biden's withdrawal from the election "injected a dose of adrenaline" for supporters of the Democratic Party. According to data from the Democratic fundraising platform actblue, after Harris launched her presidential campaign, donations to the Democratic Party from small donors reached $46.7 million in seven hours, the highest fundraising day for the platform in the 2024 election cycle. "Small donors are enthusiastic and ready for this election," actblue wrote in a social media post announcing the record donation amount.
It’s not just small donors who have responded positively, but large donors to the Democratic Party have also reopened their wallets. “I received over 200 texts, calls and emails a day from people wanting to host events and donate,” said Jon Hoeness, Harris’ national finance chairman during the 2020 primary. "The Hill" quoted a fundraiser who has supported Harris for many years as saying that "donors who have donated or even committed to donate have written checks today" and "it is a great day."
While some big donors have doubts about Harris' chances of winning, they haven't campaigned for other potential candidates. Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, the Democratic donor who was the first to call for Biden to step down, did not explicitly support Harris, but he said he was suddenly optimistic: "We have hope now. Democratic representatives need Pick a swing state winner. Thank you, Biden.”
Reporter: Chen Jialin
Editor: Xu Fangqing
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