• Elon Musk's politics may seem to be all over the place, but he's demonstrated a consistent pattern.
• He once split his political donations, but now he's one of the largest GOP megadonors.
• Musk is set to have major influence in President-elect Donald Trump's second administration.

Elon Musk has completed his political evolution. Now, he's hoping to leverage his newfound power to disrupt the federal government. 

Musk is now virtually inseparable from President-elect Donald Trump, though he hasn't always been the typical right-wing billionaire.

The Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI CEO's rightward lean is actually the culmination of an evolution that's been playing out over decades.

As the richest man in the world, Musk's stances carry great weight. His power has been on full display since he endorsed Trump shortly after the former president survived his first assassination attempt in July. Musk, unlike some of the uber-wealthy men before him, became one of the biggest megadonors of the 2024 cycle. The Tesla CEO shelled out roughly $119 million to boost Trump, mainly through America PAC, an allied super PAC. Musk even held a series of rallies in Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state of the 2024 race.

Before encouraging others to "take the red pill," Musk cut checks for Democrats ranging from Eric Garcetti (then just a Los Angeles City councilor) to John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential nominee. Like others in business, Musk curried favor by balancing his support between both parties, as his donation history shows on Open Secrets, a nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. 

Musk would occasionally weigh into politics when it could affect his businesses. But ever since Trump left the White House, the billionaire has increasingly inserted himself into debates over hot-button topics, waged a largely one-way feud with President Joe Biden, and cozied up to Trump in time to help the former president complete his political comeback.

Here's how Musk got here.

The early years: From apartheid-era South Africa to Tesla takeover

Musk, 53, has said very little publicly about apartheid, the system of racial segregation that became the defining issue of his childhood in the Republic of South Africa.

His father, Errol — who inherited wealth from half of an emerald mine he used to own — was elected to Pretoria City Council in 1972, running under the anti-apartheid Progressive Party. The apartheid system was a major motivation behind the younger Musk's decision to leave South Africa for Canada in 1989, according to Ashlee Vance's 2015 biography of the billionaire. 

Growing up in the primarily white suburbs outside of Johannesburg, Musk was also surrounded by censorship and disinformation about the government's treatment of Black people, The New York Times previously reported. His mandatory government service was what first exposed him to the reality of the situation, according to the Times, which spoke to a high school classmate of Musk's about the insulated experience.

"People, at some point, realize that they've been fed a whole lot of crap," Andrew Panzera, who was in Musk's German class, told the Times. "At some point you go, 'Jeepers, we really were indoctrinated to a large extent.'"

Musk's political coming of age during the pre-social media era remains much of a mystery. But then his profile rose with the sale of his company X.com, a competitor to PayPal co-founded by Musk, and his subsequent takeover of Tesla as owner after joining founders Martin Eberhard and Marc Tarpenning with a $6.5 million investment in 2004.

Musk's politics pre-Trump

Musk has long argued for small government and advocated for laissez-faire economic policy, calling the US government the "ultimate corporation" at a CEO summit in December 2020. In terms of donations, he's been in a relative holding pattern from his early years in Silicon Valley up to the present, donating moderate sums of money to politicians from both parties. 

"I get involved in politics as little as possible," Musk said at a 2015 Vanity Fair event, adding that, "There's some amount I have to get involved in," due to his business interests. 

He donated $2,000 each to former President George W. Bush and his 2004 Democratic challenger, former Secretary of State John Kerry. Musk also donated to California Democrats up and down the ballot, but still gave the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) $25,000 ahead of the 2006 midterms.

Another example of Musk hedging his donations came in the buildup to the 2008 presidential primaries, where he contributed to both Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton in their contentious race.

Musk didn't donate to either Clinton or Trump during the 2016 cycle.

The billionaire also started out as a heavy Trump skeptic, saying in October 2015 that it would be "embarrassing" if Trump won the GOP nomination, much less the presidency.

"I don't really have strong feelings except that hopefully Trump doesn't get the nomination of the Republican party, because I think that's, yeah … that wouldn't be good," Musk said at the Vanity Fair event. "I think at most he would get the Republican nomination, but I think that would still be a bit embarrassing."

But more recently, Musk has taken a different approach to the Trump-dominated GOP. His latest donations have all been to Republican candidates and causes, with Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware being the last Democrat to receive any Musk donations back in 2020.

Musk's politics during Trump's term

Starting in 2017, Musk's donations began to skew Republican, with the billionaire spending nearly seven times more on GOP campaigns than Democratic ones. He also accepted positions on two of Trump's White House councils and tweeted his support of Rex Tillerson's ultimately successful nomination as Secretary of State.

While Musk previously said he supported Hillary Clinton's campaign promises on the environment and climate change, he defended his decision to attend Trump's business council meetings so he could raise the issue along with the January 2017 travel ban affecting Muslim-majority countries. He then stepped down from the councils in June 2017, citing Trump's decision to leave the Paris Climate Accord.

"Climate change is real," Musk tweeted. "Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world."

Musk largely stopped mentioning Trump from that point until much later in his presidency, when Trump attended a SpaceX launch for NASA in May 2020.

Musk during Biden's presidency

In the last few years, Musk's flirtations with the Trump-led GOP have been ramping up.

In mid-2022, Musk said he voted for a Republican candidate for the first time in a Texas special election, adding that he expected to see a "massive red wave" in the year's midterms. Musk's Texas voter registration did not show party affiliation, but he's argued on X that the Democratic Party has drifted further from the center than the GOP.

Musk tweeted in June 2022 that he was leaning toward supporting Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president. DeSantis joked that he welcomed support from "African Americans," referencing Musk being South African.

Musk also said in July 2022 that Trump shouldn't run for president again and instead just "sail into the sunset."

But the billionaire has since changed his tune. 

After taking control of Twitter, now X, at the end of 2022, Musk reinstated Trump's account on the platform. Musk called Trump's expulsion from the platform following the January 6 riots a "morally bad decision" and "foolish to the extreme."

Musk repeatedly criticized Biden, calling the president a "damp sock puppet" last year and hosting an "anti-Biden brain trust" meeting with Republican billionaires this April. 

And, after Trump's felony conviction in May, Musk went to bat for the MAGA leader. 

"Indeed, great damage was done today to the public's faith in the American legal system," Musk wrote in a post on X.

"If a former President can be criminally convicted over such a trivial matter — motivated by politics, rather than justice — then anyone is at risk of a similar fate," Musk added, echoing Trump's own narrative that the conviction was an act of political persecution.

Even before Musk offered his formal endorsement, Trump had talked about including Musk in his administration. 

While Musk has been more bullish lately about support for the GOP, his history of donations and past comments show that he has tended to position himself wherever he thinks power and influence are heading.

Musk endorsed Trump after the former president survived an assassination attempt 

Musk offered his "full endorsement" of Trump after the former president was shot during a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania. He and other big names in tech connected with the defiant image of a wounded Trump thrusting his fist in the air while Secret Service officers rushed him off stage.

Before the endorsement, Musk had been more cagey about his plans. He hadn't said much about the 2024 election after DeSantis' primary campaign flopped. In March, Musk had said he wasn't donating money to either major presidential candidate. At the time, it looked like Biden and Trump were headed to an all but certain rematch.

Musk's ambivalence didn't last long. According to The Wall Street Journal, in April, the billionaire began working with Texas real estate mogul Richard Weekley on setting up a pro-Trump super PAC.  The Tesla CEO's support did not become public until July.

"It's not meant to be sort of a hyperpartisan PAC," Musk recently told the controversial Canadian professor Jordan Peterson. "The intent is to promote the principles that made America great in the first place."

 Musk gave roughly $119 million to America PAC. In total, he donated more than $132 million to Republican causes ahead of the election, making him one of the biggest megadonors of the cycle.

Musk rallied for Trump across Pennsylvania 

On October 5, Trump returned to Butler for a rally at the scene where he was nearly assassinated in July. The guest list included family members of other victims of the shooting, along with Musk, who wore a black MAGA hat.

"As you can see, I'm not just MAGA," Musk said. "I'm dark MAGA."

He lauded Trump's strength after surviving the assassination attempt. He said President Joe Biden "couldn't climb a flight of stairs" while Trump "was fist pumping after getting shot." Trump sustained an injury to his ear in the July shooting.

"So who do you want representing America?" Musk asked an enthusiastic crowd.

Musk later held a series of town hall-style events across Pennsylvania, the biggest swing state in the race. His super PAC helped Trump's campaign in the state, which he ultimately won.

Trump has named Musk to a major new advisory organization

Trump wasted little time finding a new role for Musk. On November 12, the president-elect named Musk and conservative entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy to the "Department of Government Efficiency" or DOGE. Only Congress can create departments, and by design, DOGE will operate mostly outside the federal government.

Musk has ambitious targets for the panel, which is tasked with cutting federal spending by $2 trillion.

Republicans in Congress are lining up to help. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia and Sen. Joni Ernst of Iowa are leading their respective chambers' coordination with DOGE. 

Musk and Ramaswamy wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that their outside panel would wrap up its work by July 4, 2026.