--- title: Elon Musk Meets With Donald Trump as Trump Seeks Donors description: Trump’s fundraising operation has shown signs of weakness, while Musk’s rhetoric about immigration has become increasingly similar in tone to the former President’s. canonical: https://time.com/6852994/elon-musk-donald-trump-campaign-funding/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-03-06T03:00:00.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-10-19T07:40:15.788Z article:section: Politics og:title: Elon Musk Meets With Donald Trump as Trump Seeks Donors og:description: Trump’s fundraising operation has shown signs of weakness, while Musk’s rhetoric about immigration has become increasingly similar in tone to the former President’s. og:url: https://time.com/6852994/elon-musk-donald-trump-campaign-funding/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt59318e9a17749d75/698a491b4ee262440c31cb84/elon-musk-donald-trump-donor.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Elon Musk In Krakow og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Elon Musk Meets With Donald Trump as Trump Seeks Donors twitter:description: Trump’s fundraising operation has shown signs of weakness, while Musk’s rhetoric about immigration has become increasingly similar in tone to the former President’s. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt59318e9a17749d75/698a491b4ee262440c31cb84/elon-musk-donald-trump-donor.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Elon Musk Meets With Donald Trump as Former President Seeks 2024 Campaign Funding > Sponsored content. 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It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, twice a week. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. ### Sources * TIME Newsletters: [time.com/newsletters](/c/time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3/newsletters?i=f181aa97-2bcf-40a4-b914-4bc76ad3d9c6&cr=time-nl-dcbrief-2026q3-v1) ## Video: Elon Musk: 'We Have Democracy?' [Watch (HLS stream): Elon Musk: 'We Have Democracy?'](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/4h51x7p7.m3u8) (2:59)  _Published 2022-04-26. “We have democracy?” Elon Musk interjected, with an impish smile. He’d just been asked how worried he was about the state of the American system of government. “We have a sort of democracy, I guess,” Musk went on, balancing his toddler son on his knee at a party marking his selection as TIME’s Person of the Year last December._ by [Nancy Cook and Jennifer Jacobs / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Nancy Cook and Jennifer Jacobs / Bloomberg Contributor Mar 6, 2024 3:00 AM UTC “We have democracy?” Elon Musk interjected, with an impish smile. He’d just been asked how worried he was about the state of the American system of government. “We have a sort of democracy, I guess,” Musk went on, balancing his toddler son on his knee at a party marking his selection as TIME’s Person of the Year last December. by [Nancy Cook and Jennifer Jacobs / Bloomberg](https://time.com/author/bloomberg/) ## Nancy Cook and Jennifer Jacobs / Bloomberg Contributor Mar 6, 2024 3:00 AM UTC [Donald Trump](https://time.com/tag/donald-trump/) and billionaire [Elon Musk](https://time.com/person-of-the-year-2021-elon-musk/) met on Sunday as the Republican presidential frontrunner is seeking to woo donors to fund his cash-strapped political operation, according to people familiar with the matter. The _New York Times_ reported earlier on the meeting. Musk was part of a group of prospective donors who met with the former president, the newspaper reported, adding that it is unclear if the Tesla Inc. chief executive officer has decided to contribute to Trump’s campaign. Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Musk is the world’s third richest man but has not been a major political donor, especially considering the size of his fortune, estimated at $192 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Musk has donated less than $1 million since 2009, Federal Election Commission records show. **Read More:** [_The World Could Soon Have Its First Trillionaire as Inequality Worsens_](https://time.com/6555516/first-trillionaire-oxfam-report-billionaire-inequality/) If Musk changes his approach and decides to financially back Trump, it could provide a significant boost to the former president’s campaign. Trump’s campaign war chest is far smaller than Biden’s, putting the former president at a disadvantage in a likely general election rematch between the two men. Trump has thus far struggled to attract large donors to his 2024 bid, with many of them sitting on the sidelines or supporting Nikki Haley. He began February with $30.4 million on hand, compared to the president’s $130 million, according to federal filings. Trump’s fundraising operation has shown sign of weakness: his campaign spent more than it raised in January and allied political action committees have spent more than $50 million on his legal fees so far, and are on track to run out of money to fund his lawyers mid-year. ## Dissatisfied with Biden Musk in the past has supported both Republicans and Democrats, and Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. have relied on federal subsidies and contracts. But he has been deeply critical of Biden throughout his presidency. The billionaire’s rhetoric about immigration has become increasingly bellicose, and similar in tone to Trump’s. Musk on Tuesday said Biden’s [border policies](https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1765024395217473996) amount to “treason,” accusing the administration of “ushering in vast numbers of illegals” in order to have them illegally vote for Democrats in elections. There is no evidence of claims of widespread voter fraud. The comments are reminiscent of conspiracy theories promoted by White supremacists that there’s a plot to disempower White Americans. Musk has also accused Biden and his administration of being “biased” against Tesla, citing a 2021 electric vehicle event at the White House that excluded his company. He said in November that he voted for Biden in 2020 but couldn’t see himself doing so again this fall. The technology mogul participated in meetings the White House in September about artificial intelligence, according to visitor logs, but he did not sit down with Biden. Musk has also been critical of Trump in the past. He resigned from two White House advisory councils in 2017 over the then-president’s decision to pull the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement. “Climate change is real,” Musk tweeted at the time. ## Transcript A lot of people are worried about democracy, the future of democracy, the state of democracy, part of that's tied to Silicon. We have to talk about democracy. We're here. I mean, we have a river river. So tomorrow we have party system, which only means that like issues get assigned in a semi round of matter into one bucket of the other. And then you're just supposed to pick one bucket or like this to punch balls and they both have turds in it and which one has the least amount of carrots. So I don't agree with what, you know what it is, but I like I like maybe like a future. What should I say? Mars Society of America locations, but on the side of a direct democracy like you can read them. Like, you know, any reason why he does not like Lord of the Rings? Actually. No one is redheads. Is going to be in that case, you know, so. Yeah, so it's sort of a fatalist. I was thinking, in terms of Anne, Frances talked about the misinformation about our politics. And so and everything else that's spreading across social and the manipulation of information and how the Restriction of voting rights. And I and our ability to vote and express ourselves as a democracy, is our government, a mess, but their territories. How do you think about that about the ability of people to get the right information and have the ability to express themselves about boxing? Are you worried about that? Things are going okay. In the grand scheme of things, you know, it's easy to complain. But I mean the matter is the most prosperous time in human history. So expectations are just too because you know how we're good things, get people's, expectations will always How to recalibrate to how things are. But you know if I can say like okay, it's a really so important history. Would you rather be? And and by the way, have you actually read history? 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