Why Is Elon Musk Really Embracing Donald Trump?

On Wednesday, during a gathering at Mar-a-Lago attended by some of Donald Trump's closest associates, a speaker demanded, "Where is the George Soros of the right?" In a scene that an attendee captured on video, Elon Musk, the fifty-three-year-old South African-born billionaire who reportedly spent about a hundred and thirty million dollars to aid Trump's campaign and support other Republicans in competitive races, raised his arm. Amid loud cheers, the speaker declared, "God bless you, Elon. We are so, so grateful." Musk has claimed publicly that he has never asked Trump for any favors, and that Trump has not offered him any. Despite spreading misinformation on X, his social-media platform, and heavily financing the campaign of someone who plotted an autogolpe, he has also denied being a political extremist.