It was barely half an hour after shots rang out at a Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania, with the candidate apparently among the wounded, that Elon Musk took to X, formerly Twitter, and formally backed him for president. “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Musk wrote, sharing video of the chaotic scene. He meanwhile set about blaming the Secret Service for the attempted assassination, which killed one attendee and injured two others, and amplifying posts that implied their “diversity hires” were a factor in the failure to prevent it.
For anyone who has followed Musk’s descent into right-wing fear-mongering and conspiracy theories, the Trump endorsement comes as no surprise; reports from the day prior even confirmed that the billionaire has donated to America PAC, a new pro-Trump organization spending millions to mobilize his voters ahead of Election Day. Musk has also railed against President Biden — whom he voted for in 2020 — in posts about border policy and the Democrat’s mental fitness, all as the conservative figures he interacts with on the site encouraged him to join the Republican camp.
Yet Saturday’s shooting by a 20-year-old assailant killed on the scene, which galvanized the MAGA base thanks in part to images of a bloodied Trump holding up his fist as Secret Service agents tried to move him to safety, provided a unique opportunity for Musk and others in his orbit to make their support for the former president explicit. Hours after the words of support from Musk, billionaire Bill Ackman, founder and CEO of hedge fund Pershing Square (as well as a notorious “wife guy“), wrote a lengthy post of his own announcing that he would back Trump. Ackman did not mention the shooting and wrote he’d come to the decision “some time ago,” based on “as much empirical data as possible.”
Venture capitalist Shaun Maguire, partner at the Bay Area firm Sequoia Capital, applauded Ackman’s statement. “I have extremely high respect for people that are willing to change their minds as new data comes in,” he posted. Maguire had signaled his commitment to the campaign at an earlier dramatic moment: After Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts by a New York jury in May, he donated $300,000 to the campaign, writing in his own statement that he was “prepared to lose friends” and have the media “demonize” him.
Maguire and Ackman are hardly alone among the tech and finance execs predicting that their Trump-boosting will have social consequences. James Ingallinera, who recently launched a neurotech startup that he says will use artificial intelligence to improve mental health, went viral with a post claiming that it’s a “social death sentence” to back Trump in San Francisco, where he lives. Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the shooting, he was moved to do so “publicly and unabashedly,” because a “very serious line was crossed today.”
On the other hand, some observers — such business lawyer, startup advisor, and podcaster Matt Bilinsky — saw the assassination attempt as a turning point that would dissolve the taboo preventing many from signaling their intent to vote for Trump. Among those who agreed with this assessment was Stepfanie Tyler, an entrepreneur running a “monthly AI photography magazine,” who said it “feels so good to be out of the closet.” The night of the Pennsylvania rally, she also posted a description of her journey from graduating with a degree in women’s studies in 2012, to voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016, to eventually becoming disillusioned with Democrats and aligning with Trump’s movement. Tyler noted that “watching Trump survive an assassination attempt and act like a total fucking savage just shifted me into some strange, patriotic gear,” and said it was “freeing” to declare her true political identity.
The post has more than 200,000 likes, and Musk personally shared it in a quote post, adding two flame emojis. He also replied to a post from Abhay Venkatesh, an AI product engineer at the defense contractor Anduril Industries, founded by Palmer Luckey, a longtime Silicon Valley donor for Trump. (The firm won a military AI contract during the Trump administration and makes surveillance tech installed along the U.S.-Mexico border.) Venkatesh posted that he had seen people “just casually walking around [San Francisco] with Trump hats,” and that “Something has changed.” Musk replied, “Yes.”
And Trump’s ties to the elite enclaves of big tech and venture capital grew even stronger on Monday, the opening day of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, when he announced Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio as his 2024 running mate. Vance, once a harsh critic of Trump and author of the bestselling memoir-turned-movie Hillbilly Elegy, used to work at billionaire Peter Thiel’s San Francisco investment firm Mithril Capital and founded his own VC fund, Narya Capital, with money from Thiel and another tech billionaire, Marc Andreessen. Thiel was one of Trump’s earliest and most prominent Silicon Valley supporters, dating back to 2016; Andreessen has not endorsed Trump’s latest campaign but has stepped up his negative comments about Biden and posted an image of an American flag after the shooting.
Whether the stigma attached to MAGA culture is truly softening in deep-blue California, it’s clear that players large and small in its business culture feel emboldened and energized by the attempt on Trump’s life. Musk and his far-right Twitter friends have meanwhile done everything they can to elevate those voices and convince other people reluctant to share their admiration for Trump that the time to start is now. Naturally, some of the rich and powerful will keep their cards close to the vest, though in a few cases, their neutral remarks from Saturday were a little fawning toward the former president. Amazon‘s Jeff Bezos, not exactly a fan of Biden, praised Trump’s “tremendous grace and courage under literal fire.”
Just sympathetic, or swayed by the moment? Only the owner of The Washington Post knows for sure. In any case, it’s looking like a honeymoon period for Trump and the wealthiest people in the country.