Elon Musk is stepping up his public support for Donald Trump, telling Tucker Carlson in a streamed conversation on Monday that he “completely” agrees with the Republican presidential nominee.
Appearing with Trump at a weekend rally, the world’s richest man used a casual two-hour conversation with Carlson to push right-wing talking points, including saying he would be upset if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the November election. If so then democracy is in danger.
“My view is that if Trump doesn’t win this election, it will be our last election,” the Tesla and SpaceX boss told former Fox News host Carlson.
Musk, who has increasingly been controversial in recent years, said he believed “illegals” — immigrants — were being deliberately driven to some key states, where if they were eventually granted citizenship If it goes, they will become Democrat voters.
“Now these swing-state margins are sometimes ten- to twenty-thousand votes. So what happens if you put hundreds of thousands of people in each swing state?
“So my prediction is, if the Dem administration runs another four years, they will legalize so many illegal things that … there will be no swing states in the next election, and it will be a single-party country.”
The claims by Musk – who himself is from South Africa – echo a common belief on the political right, which alleges a conspiracy between Democrats and immigrants.
Musk is increasingly becoming a surrogate for Trump on the campaign trail and is reportedly planning to make several stops in battleground states in the coming weeks.
Over the weekend, he unveiled a program that promised to pay $47 to anyone who registers voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Michigan.
The scheme is looking to mimic the successful referral programs that the South African-born entrepreneur has used in the past with his Tesla electric cars.
In his nearly two-hour conversation with Carlson, in which both men repeatedly laughed at each other’s pronouncements, Musk said he threw his full support behind fellow billionaire Trump.
“If he loses, it’s going to be hard for you to pretend you never supported him,” Carlson said.
Musk responded, “I’m all in, baby.”
“How long do you think my prison sentence will be?” He laughed off the idea that the odds would turn against him under a Democratic administration. “Will I be able to see my kids? I don’t know.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
