Buying Bragging Rights

"It is noteworthy that he is the owner of one of these tech platforms and has been so out front and vocal for a specific candidate and prominent as a donor; you don't typically see that combination."

"It is a true disruption of campaign finance and how donors approach this."

EricWilson, Republican digital strategist, executive director, Center for Campaign Innovation

Elon Musk with his son X Æ A-12 on Capitol Hill. Samuel Corum/Getty Images

American politics was always funded by wealthy donors declaring their dedication to America as staunch patriots, with more than a soupcon of personal interest in deriving benefits from whichever party they supported that once in office might enact laws, rules and regulations impacting on their industries, incomes, lifestyles. In the past ten years or so, amounts have vastly ballooned. The jaded might feel that the presidency is for sale. Yet people of wealth and influence have always had the  upper track in political outcomes. It's just that in this particular election year that saw a Democratic president unseated and a Republican past-president returned to office, the scale of political donations was truly spectacular.

The choices were, to many voters, as lacklustre as the two elections that preceded this one. Candidates that in one way or another failed to reflect qualities that most reasonable people might expect of a president. Entitlements, corruption, character, background, reputation and past transgressions all pay a role in choices, and this election was no different, other than the fact that perhaps both candidates wore their negatives in the hope that their positives would outglow the other's.

The issue of political donations and their end effect on the final results of any election is controversial. As long as they're aboveboard and fall within the election laws to pass muster, there should be no issue. But this year it's the spectacular total of the donations to the Republic campaign in support of Donald Trump along with other candidates for the Republican party on the part of the world's wealthiest man who just happens to be an American whose celebrity owes to his wealth and his enterprises that has taken top news spots.

 

Still from video, ABC News

 

Most people still think that a million dollars is a lot of money, a sum that the average person could live comfortably on. The news that at least $277 million of Elon Musk's total wealth, the richest man in the world, went to support the Republican election campaign for 2024, revealed by findings of the Federal Election Commission still took the political world by surprise. Musk, who lacks little in his life, a bold entrepreneur with a wide vision in advanced technology in road vehicles and rocketry reaching for the stars, now has a star role in a new Donald J. Trump White House administration.

A Musk super PAC established to support Republican candidates received the lion's share of the multi billionaire's donations, giving it the financial impetus to operate a significant get-out-the-vote operation supporting Donald Trump. Musk has used his ownership of the social media platform, 'X' to boost support for Trump's presidential campaign, lauding his sterling qualities and presenting the man as the answer to America's ills -- primarily its move to quash the soft-woke left. 

 

Trump's America PAC received close to $45 million, presumably to handle election expenses. The outcome of the November 5 election was owed in some small part without doubt, to the vigour that $232 million pumped into the election campaign, with another $20.5 million to a PAC whose purpose was solely to assure voters that Donald Trump's signature would never grace a national ban on abortion.

 

Now, Elon Musk has been given a challenge in the incoming administration; his skill-set in business, technology, salesmanship, and investment successes certainly qualify him for a position as co-chair with Vivek Ramaswamy of a non-governmental commission named the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to develop strategies recommending paring down federal spending and regulations.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk jumps on stage as he joins former US President and Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally in Butler, Pa., on Oct. 5, 2024.   Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images