What Elon Musk gains from a second Trump term

If you were wondering why Elon Musk suddenly decided to plunge more than $130 million supporting Donald Trump in the 2024 U.S. election, the first answer arrived on Wednesday — when Musk's net worth increased by a whopping $15 billion. Which, if you do the math, comes out to a 11,538 percent return on investment.

And that's not all Musk and his companies are likely to get out of the election result.

First a quick recap: Musk's support for Trump was far from inevitable. Indeed, back in July 2022, when he was finalizing his Twitter takeover, Musk tweeted that Trump should "hang up his hat and sail into the sunset." This was in response to Trump calling Musk "another bullshit artist." After the sunset comment, Trump hit back by recounting Musk's requests for government subsidies in his first term: "I could have said 'drop to your knees and beg' and he would have done it," Trump wrote.

The two had been feuding on and off since Musk was appointed to Trump's advisory councils in 2017, then resigned when Trump withdrew the U.S. from the Paris climate accords. Musk's politics appear to have been drifting rightwards for years, but initially he supported Florida governor Ron DeSantis over Trump in the GOP primaries — to the point of hosting DeSantis' campaign launch in a disastrous Twitter Spaces stream in 2023.

Two years after the "bullshit artist" feud, and six months after DeSantis dropped out, Musk officially endorsed Trump. Still, the world's richest man took a few more months to fully open the floodgates of his fortune. His America PAC spent around $30 million in August and September, then ramped up to an estimated $130 million total in the final months of the campaign. That includes the infamous $1 million-a-day voter "lottery" that Musk's own lawyers admitted wasn't actually a lottery.

Musk began coordinating with the Trump campaign, and went full "dark MAGA" at his first Trump rally less than a month before the election. His midriff-baring X-shaped leaps on stage led to one of the more memorable lines of the campaign, when VP candidate Tim Walz described Musk "skipping like a dipshit."

Whether Musk's bizarre appearances actually helped the Trump campaign is an open question, but evidently the billionaire's cash infusion didn't hurt. What we don't know, and may never know is what Musk and Trump discussed off-stage.

We do know, however, that Musk has at least 20 reasons to be looking for leniency from the next administration.

The Musk-Trump axis

The tech mogul needs the president-elect because Musk's companies face a total of "at least 20" federal probes, according to a New York Times report. It matters greatly to Musk who Trump picks to lead the Departments of Justice, Labor, and Transportation, on top of any new appointees to the Securities and Exchange Commission and Federal Trade Commission, because all those agencies are investigating potential violations at Tesla, SpaceX, NeuraLink, and Twitter/X. All four companies, not to mention Musk himself, could face major fines. Or the investigations could be quietly quashed.

And on the positive side of the ledger, there is much, much more that Musk could gain from a second Trump administration. Not just the extension of those EV subsidies and tax credits that Musk wanted in Trump's first term, but also government contracts galore. Musk has won $16 billion in contracts over the last decade — the vast majority of it via SpaceX, on which NASA is increasingly reliant. (Trump will also get to appoint a new NASA administrator.)

Roughly $3 billion of that landed in Musk's coffers over the last year, so the tax-dollars-to-Musk pipeline is only getting larger. His Starlink satellite internet service, which Musk recently claimed he would offer for free to Hurricane Helene victims (it turned out to be a 30-day free trial), will likely earn him billions more in contracts under Trump, according to a Washington Post investigation.

And then there's the still-vague notion Trump has floated, of Musk actually running a significant chunk of the federal government himself. There's no word yet on plans for a "Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE)," which Musk named for one of his favorite memes. Asked at Trump's Madison Square Garden rally how much this department could cut from the annual federal budget, Musk said $2 trillion.

Given that the government's entire discretionary budget is just $1.7 trillion, Musk could only reach this number by slashing mandatory spending — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, in other words. Politicians traditionally shy away from cutting these hugely popular programs. Musk, of course, is no politician, and will never have to face the voters himself.

What Trump has to fear from Musk

Who has the upper hand in this relationship — the most powerful world leader or the world's richest man?

Though his bravado would never allow him to say so openly, Trump has much to fear from Musk. If the two fell out again — a distinct possibility, given the vast array of former Trump officials who feuded with their boss in his first term — Musk has plenty of avenues for revenge.

First up, Musk has total control over Trump's precious, the @realdonaldtrump handle that propelled him to power back in 2016. In 2021, the account was "permanently" suspended after Trump encouraged the January 6 insurrection. When Musk took over, he initially said he'd rely on a "content moderation council" to make the restoration decision. A month later Musk did it via Twitter poll, in which the pro-Trump side won by a hair, with 51.8% of the vote.

What Musk giveth, Musk can also take away — and he has plenty of reasons to do so. Trump has been convicted, and may yet be sentenced, on 34 counts of business fraud. In a separate civil fraud case, he has been ordered to pay an already-reduced $175 million penalty. He still stands accused in multiple cases of attempting to overthrow the 2020 election results, not to mention the charges of unlawfully keeping classified documents at Mar-a-Lago.

Musk doesn't even have to go so far as to remove Trump's account again; there are many ways to keep the administration and its scandal-plagued leader in line. The X algorithm has already been tweaked to favor Trump. It would be child's play to tweak it again, de-platforming any Republican politician or appointee who stands up to Musk. Removing his government contracts would pose little threat, given how much the government is reliant on them.

Musk has also said his America PAC will keep going through the 2026 midterm elections. If Trump doesn't want to face a Democratic Congress — one that will likely have even more reasons to impeach him for a third time — the president-elect and his team will have to keep Musk on their side.

It's early days yet, and there may be many more twists to this tale of two highly mercurial billionaires. But the relationship could easily become as imbalanced as their relative fortunes. (Musk is worth $292 billion and rising, according to the Forbes list; Trump can muster between $4 to 8 billion net worth depending on the value of his media company, which just erased all of its post-election gains.) So much so, in fact, that Musk could soon earn himself a new unofficial title: shadow president.