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Elon Musk, the biggest political donor in the United States, said that he intended to spend “much less” for political campaigns in the future, in one of the Loyalists of Donald Trump before the mid-term elections of next year.
The richest man in the world, who spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars on Trump’s presidential campaign in 2024, said he thought he had “enough” a donation to political causes.
Speaking on Tuesday at Qatar Economic Forum, Musk said: “I will do much less (political expenses) in the future”, adding that he did not “currently have seen a reason” to support the level of support he granted conservative candidates in the past year.
The remarks come after after Musk’s last foray into electoral policy ended with a defeat. The candidate of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin, he supported with more than $ 25 million lost by 10 percentage points in April, after the Democrats transformed the race into a referendum on the Trump administration and the so-called Department of Musk government efficiency.
Shortly after the defeat, Musk – Who Ords Show is more unpopular than Trump – announced that he was coming back from Doge to spend more time directing Tesla, who had undergone a sales crisis in part because of protests against the initiative to reduce government costs.
The billionaire has transformed the 2024 elections by funding Trump’s campaign, and offering Republicans in the key states of $ 100 to sign a petition affirming their support “for the first and second amendments”, in order to increase the participation rate in marginal districts.
America PAC, the political action committee created by Musk, also offered $ 1 million a day to a signatory of petitions in the last weeks of the race.
Trump supporters expected Musk to continue supporting the Republicans aligned by Maga throughout the electoral cycle.
The member of the Marjorie Congress Taylor Greene, a fierce ally of Trump, said in November that America PAC “was going to be critical in the assembly of the primaries against any person who prevents the Maga Agenda”.
But Musk has since faced the members of Trump’s office and is implacally opposed to the administration’s trade policies. Its companies also suffered from its proximity to the White House.
Tuesla’s managing director reiterated on Tuesday that he expected to stay in charge of the electric car company in the foreseeable future.
The company denied recent reports that the members of the Tesla board of directors had explored the possibility of appointing a successor.
Musk, who fights a legal battle on a salary package of around $ 100 billion in Tesla, said that he thought that “there should be compensation … (when) something incredible was done”.
He also suggested that his commitment to the company was at least somewhat subordinate to remuneration and that the actions attributed to him give him sufficient control over the company.
Musk said that it would be open to possibly float his internet Starlink satellite activity, which is currently part of SpaceX, but was wary of the administrative burden to be a public enterprise.
Additional report by Chloé Cornish