Nate Tramdaks, Staff Writer

During the four to five months leading up to the election, Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and X, played a crucial part in Donald Trump’s election victory. Particularly through the use of his social media platform, X (formerly Twitter), his establishment of the America PAC, and his targeted efforts in the key battleground state of Pennsylvania. 

Elon’s acquisition of X allowed him to reshape the platform as a hub for his brand of free speech absolutism, allowing for political discourse on both sides. Under this brand he unbanned and welcomed Donald Trump back to the site, along with anyone else who was banned off of the site for speech-related reasons including people banned due to their involvement on January 6th, like Nick Fuentes.

This platform became a very powerful tool for political influence. Through X, he promoted pro-Trump content, disseminated partisan messages and engaged with influential figures. Notably, Musk’s interactions with podcaster Joe Rogan were instrumental in engaging and mobilizing young-male voters, a crucial demographic for Trump.

Joe Rogan released a podcast episode featuring Elon Musk the day of the election. Rogan also endorsed Trump the day before the election. Young men (ages 18-29) swung heavily for Trump this election as 56% voted for him. This highlights a massive leap from the 42% that Trump received from the same demographic in the 2020 election. 

In May 2024, Musk established America PAC, a super political action committee dedicated to supporting Trump’s presidential bid. By mid-October, Musk contributed nearly $118.5 million to the PAC, which spent $137.5 million by that time on initiatives to bolster the Trump campaign. 

One of the PAC’s controversial strategies was to give away a daily $1 million to registered voters in swing states, most notably in Pennsylvania. Participants had to sign petitions supporting the first and second amendments, essentially serving as mode of data collection for targeted voter outreach.

This faced legal scrutiny under allegations of an unlawful lottery and potential violations of federal laws prohibiting payments for voter registration. The legal pursuits failed and the giveaways continued, enhancing voter outreach in the key swing states. Trump went on to win seven out of seven key swing states, completely flipping the “blue wall” (Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania) that voted for Biden in 2020, as well as Georgia, Arizona and Nevada.

There was a targeted effort by Musk in the state of Pennsylvania, the most crucial state of all of the swing states, carrying 19 electoral votes, the highest of the seven states. Elon spoke at a Trump rally for the first time in Trump’s return rally to Butler, Pennsylvania, the same exact place where his first assaination attempt took place.

During his speech at the rally, Musk repeated Trump’s, “fight, fight, fight.” Musk later made an appearance at Trump’s rally in MSG, a week before the election. Trump won Pennsylvania by a very narrow margin of almost 2%, getting 50.43% of the vote to Harris’s 48.57%. Flipping key counties like Erie and Northhamptom helped Trump secure the win in Pennsylvania.

Following his election win, Trump has appointed Musk to his cabinet. Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, will be running the Department of Government Efficiency (D.O.G.E.).