Elon cozies up to Donald for attention. Trump should wait until the check clears.
Imagine a man, rich and famous but always presenting as emotionally empty, needing more and more, so thirsty for attention that he spouts outrageous stuff because the antipathy it provokes from critics is as valuable to him as the admiration he draws from his fans.
Is that Donald Trump? Or Elon Musk?
Sorry – trick question. It's both.
So it was completely predictable that these toxic twins would unite in the 2024 presidential election. An alliance serves their most rapacious appetites.
Trump covets critics-turned-converts. Musk craves being at the center of the conversation.
Elon Musk takes the opportunity to grab headlines, again
The Wall Street Journal broke the news last Monday, during the first day of the Republican National Convention, that Musk was telling people he would commit about $45 million per month to a new super PAC founded and funded in May by other tech oligarchs.
It was exactly the kind of splashy, insert-yourself-into-the-news-cycle sort of spectacle that Musk thrives on. But a word of caution here for Trump: Wait till Musk's check clears before you really celebrate his generosity.
Musk, who bought his way into electric car manufacturer Tesla and then purchased the social media site previously know as Twitter, has a penchant for making big promises. His record on follow-through is spotty.
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Musk has previously predicted that humans would land on Mars this year and that his spaceship maker, SpaceX, would have been flying people on the regular to the moon by 2018. He also forecast in mid-March 2020 that the COVID-19 pandemic would be over by the end of the following month.
That's all great stuff for grabbing headlines, but that's all it was good for.
Musk has to ignore that Trump hates electric cars
Trump and Musk are not simpatico on all things. For instance, Trump openly loathes electric cars. That has long been a standard attack in his rally stump speech.
Imagine Teddy Roosevelt railing against the combustion engine as president in 1903 and Henry Ford declaring, "I'll throw wads and wads of cash his way!" (Fun fact: Roosevelt rode in both gas-powered and electric cars as president.)
Still, Musk brags about having Trump's ear. During a Tesla shareholders meeting recently, he said Trump calls him "out of the blue" to chat. "I don't know why, but he does," Musk told shareholders.
Really? A politician on the hook for up to half a billion dollars in civil judgments who also needs millions of dollars to pay attorneys representing him in criminal cases finds the time to shoot the breeze with one of the wealthiest people on the planet?
What are the odds?
Musk once supported Democrats
Musk has said that he voted for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, when he told CNBC that Trump "doesn’t seem to have the sort of character that reflects well on the United States."
He also voted for Biden in 2020, but announced in 2022 that he would support Republicans that year because of "unprovoked attacks by leading Democrats against me and a very cold shoulder to Tesla & SpaceX."
Musk's announcement, made on the social media site he renamed X, landed a month and a half before Trump tore into him on the then-president's rival social media platform known as Truth Social.
"When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all his many subsidized projects, whether its electric cars that don't drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocket ships to nowhere, without which subsidies he'd be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, 'drop to your knees and beg,' and he would have done it," Trump posted, along with a picture of Musk standing in the Oval Office, looking like an errant schoolboy called to the principal's office.
Elon, a Trump supporter? The signs were always there.
Elon plays the victim to get the attention he craves
Good Jobs First, a labor-leaning website that tracks subsidies, reports that Tesla and related companies have received more than $2.8 billion in local, state and federal government subsidies in the past 17 years. Tesla promotes on its own website the local, state and federal government "incentives" for electric car buyers.
Last week, Musk suggested that eliminating those subsidies would actually be good for Tesla. This from a guy who last year told advertisers on his social media site to "go f--- yourselves" when they pulled their business because their ads were landing next to antisemitic posts on X.
That failed to boost the bottom line for the business, of course. But it won Musk plenty of attention. Just like Trump, Musk sees real value in playing the victim if it draws an audience.
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Trump and Musk share an empty attention tank they can't seem to fill
Musk may come through with the money to back Trump. He might not. Time will tell.
But don't get it twisted that this is about politics or policy for Musk or Trump. They're both long-standing attention grifters who can see and capitalize on the value of being in the center of the American conversation.
Sure, they may need to lean hard on outlandish trash talk and unabashed self-aggrandizement to break through the chaotic chatter, to get people to really dial in. They may even have to lie here and there or everywhere for your consideration.
But know this – it will never be enough for Musk or Trump. They're always on empty, always trying to refuel the tank, to recharge the battery. They won't get there.
It's almost enough to make you feel bad for them. Almost.
Follow USA TODAY elections columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan
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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Musk's $45 million monthly Trump donation is yet another headline grab