Roundup: Elon Musk endorses Donald Trump

Back in March, after meeting Donald Trump in Florida, Elon Musk declared he wouldn’t be donating to either political candidate for president. His dislike of Biden was well known, but he wasn’t willing to go as far as to endorse Trump. That was always hard to believe, but now his support for the Republican candidate is official.

On Saturday evening, after an attempt on Trump’s life at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, Musk shared a video of a bleeding Trump pumping his fist to the crowd with the caption, “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.” He followed it up with an already iconic photo of Trump with his fist in the air, the US flag flapping behind him, and Secret Service agents surrounding him.

It might seem that moment changed everything for Musk, but it only really catalized the public endorsement. In private, Musk was already supporting Trump’s effort to return to the White House. The day before, Bloomberg was already reporting that Musk had donated a “sizeable amount” (the actual figure may be made public next week) to a Super PAC working to elect Trump. That’s not a donation directly to a candidate, so Musk hasn’t technically broken the pledge he made in March (yet).

It’s hardly a surprise to see Musk make the move though. He’s already championed Trump-supporting Republicans in recent years over more traditional GOP candidates, and there are many other in Silicon Valley walking the same path. Notably, David Sacks, who was one of the advisors Musk brought in to help him remake Twitter into X, has been trying to become this cycle’s Peter Thiel, openly endorsing Trump’s reelection and hosting a $300,000-a-head fundraiser for him alongside Chamath Palihapitiya.

On the All-In podcast that they co-host, Sacks recently said, “I know there’s going to be a lot of people who support Trump, but they don’t want to admit it.” Seeing an attempt on the candidate’s life may change that.

After the shooting, Musk unsurprisingly was tweeting up a storm. Along with his glorification of Trump and demands for Secret Service leadership to resign were direct attacks on Biden-supporting tech elites like venture capitalist Reid Hoffman. During a conversation with political foe Thiel at Sun Valley earlier this week, Thiel thanked Hoffman for funding some of the lawsuits against Trump, which turned the candidate into “a martyr” and helped his reelection, according to Thiel. Hoffman responded, “I wish I had made him an actual martyr.” Musk posted screenshots of the comment on Saturday evening, writing, “The Reid Hoffman’s of the world got their dearest wish … but then the martyr lived.”

In the roundup this week, some great stories about the health effects of hum that comes from large data centers, more AI bullshit, and a Shopify executive backing a right-wing media site. Plus, plenty of labor updates and other tech news you might have missed from throughout the week.

Over on Tech Won’t Save Us, I spoke to David Gerard about Jack Dorsey’s odd crypto-libertarian politics and why he pulled his support for Bluesky to support Elon Musk’s right-wing reshaping of Twitter into X.

We’re surely in for an interesting week ahead.

— Paris