Billionaire Elon Musk dedicated significant personal time and at least $260m to Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
That massive investment paid off for Trump, who has now returned to the White House. And it’s paid off for Musk, who has bought himself a choice seat at the new president’s table – he literally dined with the Trump family on Thanksgiving.
Musk has also been given a potentially powerful role as head of the “Department of Government Efficiency”, a nebulous nongovernmental entity charged with auditing the entire federal government. And as Trump begins to reassert his foreign policy in his early days back in office, Musk has made himself a key presence in Trump’s ad hoc diplomacy.
Musk joined Trump on a call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and at the reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron.
Musk’s growing role as an adviser, and perhaps more, on issues of foreign policy presents one of the biggest wild cards for the new Trump administration. If Musk remains as influential in the Trump administration as he has been during the campaign and transition periods, we are poised to see an American foreign policy driven by Musk’s net worth, his worldview, and, most notably, his ego.
Musk’s nine-figure investment in getting Trump elected has already benefitted Musk financially. Tesla’s market cap topped $1 trillion and Musk’s personal fortune grew to more than $300bn immediately after Trump’s win. Investors are counting on Musk’s companies benefitting from access to Trump, and they have good reason to believe that even American foreign policy will bend to serve these corporate interests.
Musk has managed to funnel American taxpayer dollars into his business ventures for years by painting his bottom line as a public good. Early in the Obama administration, the federal government extended a $465m loan to Tesla as part of its economic stimulus and clean energy agendas, helping the company move from a niche player to a major force in the auto industry. In 2015, the Los Angeles Times documented nearly $5bn in government subsidies acquired by Musk’s companies, including Telsa and SpaceX, and that number has only grown over time. For instance, although Musk had initially donated the use of his Starlink satellite internet service to Ukraine during its war against Russia, the Pentagon quietly picked up the tab for an undisclosed amount after Musk threatened to cut the service off.
But even these examples pale in comparison to the extent to which American foreign policy may be dictated by Musk’s corporate interests going forward. Amid European efforts to regulate Musk’s social media platform X and punish Musk for noncompliance, incoming Vice President JD Vance suggested that continuing American support for NATO be conditioned on Europe rolling back its efforts against X.
Musk has lobbied the Trump administration to kill a tax credit on electric vehicles, a move that would deal a blow to US car manufacturers like General Motors and Ford – helping Musk’s own Tesla by hurting these competitors – and benefit China, which already has a huge lead on the EV market, including much of Tesla’s production.
Musk’s influence on foreign policy may have an outsized impact on areas of the world where Trump is simply uninterested. Take sub-Saharan Africa, a region that Trump mostly ignored outside of dismissing countries there as “s***holes” and targeting several of them with his so-called “Muslim ban”. Musk’s Starlink service is rapidly expanding across Africa. This has boosted internet access in a number of countries, but continued expansion faces regulatory hurdles. This is a policy area in which Musk could use the levers of American influence to pressure these governments to drop their attempts to restrict or regulate Starlink. Such a move would have both benefits and costs for the countries involved, expanding connectivity for their citizens but potentially costing telecom jobs if local providers are pushed out of business. But the benefits to Musk are clear, and Musk is well-positioned to use his leverage here and elsewhere to the benefit of his corporate empire.
Outside of promoting positions and policies that would increase his already massive net worth, Musk has also established an increasingly conservative political agenda which sometimes supersedes his financial interests. Musk’s impulsive purchase of Twitter seems to have been driven by his absolutist position on “free speech” and his desire to own a platform where he can freely share his own opinions about the world. As Musk has drifted to the far right in his own views, which he regularly shares on X, he has found a kindred spirit in Donald Trump. In recent months, Musk has tweeted in favour of cutting foreign aid and expressed scepticism at international treaties that “restrict the freedoms of Americans,” ideas that resonate with Trump.
Trump and Musk indeed share a penchant for cosying up to authoritarians and the far right. After sparking controversy on Inauguration Day by giving what appeared to be a Nazi salute – an accusation that Musk has subsequently mocked online – the billionaire appeared by video at an event held by Germany’s far-right AfD party. Musk has previously insisted that “only AfD can save Germany.” Musk has similarly backed far-right opposition parties in countries such as the UK. In the past, Musk made statements appearing to appease Russian control over Crimea – apparently after Musk had communicated with Putin over the issue – and Chinese ambitions to take control of Taiwan. Musk is also developing a relationship with Argentina’s right-wing President Javier Milei, who has slashed the country’s budget in a move to fight out-of-control inflation, but at the cost of plummeting GDP and rising poverty. Musk sees Milei’s policies as a model to be duplicated in the US. When it comes to alienating longstanding American allies and placating autocrats and ideologues, Musk is set to reinforce Trump’s own tendencies.
But figuring out the ideological direction that Musk will turn American foreign policy is perhaps not the most relevant frame for viewing his involvement with the incoming administration. From Musk’s point of view, his concerns about the directions that the world will take on important issues like war and peace seem rooted less in principle and more in the idea that he should be the one guiding these outcomes. Musk is an egoist; he wants to be the one implementing the grand visions for the world, even if his mercurial nature means that the content of those visions changes frequently.
Look at his involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war. Shortly after the Russian invasion in 2022, Musk challenged Vladimir Putin to a fistfight to resolve the issue. When that solution did not work, Musk volunteered the use of his Starlink services to Ukraine, giving the country’s military a much-needed logistical lifeline. But Musk’s donation of his Starlink satellite internet services to Ukraine has not simply been an act of generosity or solidarity with Ukraine. Rather, it’s part of a larger effort by Musk to manage the conflict. This can be seen by Musk’s decisions to limit what Starlink can be used for – over the objections of the Ukrainian government and its military strategists. Furthermore, Musk has reportedly had initially undisclosed conversations with Vladimir Putin, and the businessman offered an unsolicited “peace plan” that was quickly rejected by Zelenskyy as appeasement to Russia.
In short, Musk unilaterally decided to insert himself as a major player in the Russia-Ukraine war. Having attempted to micromanage the conflict as a private citizen, Musk’s growing role as a quasi-government agent for Trump will only magnify his sense of self-importance in global affairs.
As a businessman, Musk has taken the approach of casting a wide net, invested in everything from electric vehicles to space travel to social media in order to create a many-headed corporate hydra. As he enters politics, his ill-defined Department of Government Efficiency has seen itself as having the entire federal government as its jurisdiction. Musk is likely to take a similarly all-encompassing view of foreign policy, stepping into any and every situation in which he sees himself as smarter than the experts.
And Trump, who values loyalty and wealth above credentials when selecting his top aides, seems to be encouraging this type of overreach.
Musk met with Iran’s ambassador to the UN in a conversation towards resetting relations between the two countries. This task is a tall order after Trump authorised the killing of a top Iranian general during his first presidency and Iran allegedly authorised an assassination plot against Trump in retaliation. Most administrations, seeking to negotiate such a significant reboot of bilateral relations with a major geopolitical foe in the middle of a precarious time for the Middle East, would assign the task to top-level professional diplomats rather than a mercurial billionaire.
But Donald Trump is not most presidents and Elon Musk is not most billionaires. The semi-isolationist “Make America Great Again” Trump is only somewhat interested in the rest of the world, and Musk has grand designs to rework the world, and other worlds as well, according to his own whims. Whether it’s Middle East diplomacy, European conflict or African infrastructure, look for Elon Musk to assert that he knows best, with the weight of the US government now behind him.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
