07 Nov 2024, 02:58 AM IST Bloomberg The world’s richest man has lavished time, attention and tens of millions of dollars on Trump’s reelection. And it’s not for nothing. {{^adFree}} X is campaign central for Trump If Trump wins and does indeed bring Musk inside the White House, X would essentially resemble something previously unthinkable: a US state-run social network. The site’s transformation began in 2022 when Musk, already a power user on the platform, acquired the site for $44 billion, having briefly tried to back out of the deal. Until that point, Musk had used what was then Twitter to mostly hype his businesses — a single tweet could and did send Tesla’s stock price soaring. {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}} Musk — back then, at least — was a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist." He had long maintained he was a neutral party who would adhere to that standard and avoid promoting any defined political agenda. He reinstated Trump’s personal account — in the interest of free speech, he said — after it had been suspended by previous Twitter leadership in the wake of the Jan. 6 riots at the Capitol. Before long, Musk’s self-described “moderate" politics began to evaporate. Soon, he was livestreaming from the US-Mexico border. He became, statistically, the biggest single peddler of right-wing conspiracy theories on the site. In the immediate aftermath of the assassination attempt on Trump in July, he announced he would endorse the former president — which by then surprised few. Whether this support is due to a genuine belief in Trump’s politics, or a tactic to protect his businesses, is known only to Musk himself. Either way, X has morphed into the communications wing of the Trump campaign. {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}} Musk has used his platform to aggressively push the political spending efforts of his America PAC, including amplifying baseless allegations of voter fraud and dangerous exaggerations and falsehoods about immigration and its effects, as our colleagues in Bloomberg News have reported. He has livestreamed his own get-out-the-vote rallies on behalf of Trump. And, at a rate of usually dozens a day, Musk has personally shared numerous pro-Trump posts and conspiracy theories. The virality of Republican messaging on X has soared during the campaign, according to one analysis. This power to aggressively shape the online narrative makes Musk a crucial ally to Trump during a potential second term — and even if he loses. In the event of a Harris victory, X could become the engine room for the opposition. A dedicated X community, backed by Musk, has already been established for sharing “potential incidents" of problems at the polls, laying the groundwork for another “Stop the Steal" effort. X’s struggling business, deserted by many major advertisers, has much to gain from a second Trump term if he uses the site as he did during his presidency. Trump used Twitter as his primary medium for announcing policy when he was in the White House, firing Cabinet members, disparaging critics, claiming inflated crowd sizes and so on. {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}} Trump has been less of a voice on X, since having his account reinstated, because there’s money to be made elsewhere. He holds a 57% stake in the company that owns Truth Social, a rival “free speech" platform. Those shares are currently worth about $3.5 billion — though the value is closely tethered to Trump’s electoral prospects and has fluctuated wildly. When Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. went public investors were assured that Trump had agreed to a clause that required his posts, with some vague exceptions, be on Truth Social for six hours before appearing elsewhere. For a full year, Trump posted on X just once — his mugshot. As Election Day has neared, this stipulation has been largely overlooked, suggesting Trump still sees X as politically valuable. He started posting regularly there when Harris became the Democratic nominee. And he took part in a glitch-ridden livestream on the site with Musk during which the duo first floated the idea of Musk joining a Trump administration. Trump hasn’t said what he intends to do with his various business interests if he wins . Last time around, he placed them in a blind trust controlled by his sons and his longtime chief financial officer, leading to understandable skepticism over how “blind" the trust truly was. Any change in circumstance could pave the way for his full-throated return to X, bringing some desperately needed and bankable long-term engagement to the site. {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}} Truth Social isn’t a bona fide X competitor; its sky-high stock price, pegged to hopes of a Trump win, belies its tiny — and one-sided — user base and financial losses. X, meanwhile, would be more than happy to accommodate Trump’s worst excesses in a way that would render Truth Social’s reason for existing largely obsolete. One way or another, Musk could be expected to use his proximity to Trump to further his business goals for X, which include going after advertisers and nonprofits that have abandoned the platform. Musk, counterproductively, is suing some advertisers that avoid the site, accusing them of an “illegal boycott." Musk’s stated goal of positioning X as an “everything" app, with a major financial services component, might also benefit from some government support. The company has disclosed it has secured money transmitter licenses in 38 US states — but not yet in the critical market of New York. {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}} Elsewhere, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, is on the cusp of a new funding round that would value it at a reported $40 billion . The xAI startup is Musk’s bid to be part of the booming new sector, having parted ways with OpenAI — which he co-founded — over disagreements with that company’s CEO, Sam Altman. Musk’s xAI is pitched as a viable alternative to OpenAI and competing products being developed by Anthropic and Meta Platforms Inc. It is being trained on X posts, powering the site’s AI chatbot, Grok. Musk is developing an AI-training supercomputer that came online in Memphis last month. Powering these energy-hungry models is another challenge that a Trump White House could address. The administration would almost certainly loosen restrictions on emissions, making it easier for companies to use gas-fired power, and might be persuaded to pour more funding into nuclear power — all of which would be advantageous to Musk’s push. {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}} Becoming the AI model of choice for the federal government is an opportunity worth billions of dollars. Musk’s insistence that his model is an “anti woke" AI, one that contrasts with the supposedly tainted efforts of “Silicon Valley liberals," would be of great appeal to his potential new boss. Musk’s shrewd risk-taking and market insights have seen him parlay his initial PayPal windfall into an eye-watering fortune, enabling him to reimagine entire industries and to command a level of global influence few businesspeople have ever enjoyed. Musk is both a welcome and rare catalyst for change, and a symbol of the outsized, troubling privileges and access that come with extraordinary wealth. He personifies a world in which one person, unconstrained and seemingly remorseless, can use concentrated riches and power to dominate critical sectors of society and the economy. That, in turn, allows Musk to thumb his nose at convention, civility, the truth and the rule of law. He is, in that sense, a natural partner for Trump. Should Musk enter a Trump administration, what could curb his power — or, at a minimum, ensure that it isn’t exercised merely to serve his own needs? US institutions, including Congress, regulators and courts, would have to stand tall. {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}} There’s good reason for pessimism. Trump flouted ethical norms his predecessors had observed during his presidency, reveling in financial and political conflicts of interest that have tested — and may have broken — the law. He went unchecked at crucial moments by law enforcement and Congress. His post-presidential resurgence from the Jan. 6, 2021, siege at the US Capitol made it clear that the Republican Party and tens of millions of American voters didn’t care about his myriad transgressions. Musk has watched Trump skate past many of his problems and is likely to take cues from that journey. He is already accustomed to dealing with accommodating corporate boards and loyal shareholders, so operating unchecked in a second Trump administration would come easily to him. Government bureaucracy alone may offer a check. Musk is used to firing tens of thousands of people as he wishes and pivoting an entire company with a tweet or two. That may make him ill-suited to working through the inertia, frustration and sheer boredom of public governance and consensus-building. He wouldn’t be the first wannabe swamp-drainer to get mired in the ooze instead. Rex Tillerson, another corporate titan used to directing a slick, industry-leading machine in the form of Exxon Mobil Corp., found himself ill-prepared for the workings of the State Department and the skulduggery of the Trump White House. {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}} Tillerson also happened to be the first Cabinet official ever to be fired on social media after reportedly describing his boss with a little too much of what Musk might term free speech. Therein may lie another potential check. Trump loves having rich, flashy, aggressive men at his side, and Musk fits the bill. Trump doesn’t like sharing the spotlight, however, especially if his partners have the celebrity status Musk enjoys. It’s a recipe for conflict. After all, we now have two self-interested alpha males in a marriage of convenience who share a fascination with attention, fast money and unbridled power, even at the expense of democracy and the public interest. What could possibly go wrong? {{^adFree}} {{/adFree}}