Elon Musk is now a villain in Joe Biden's presidential campaign

Elon Musk has made it clear he doesn’t like Joe Biden. But since Musk officially endorsed and is reportedly financially backing Donald Trump in this year’s presidential campaign, Biden is returning the favor. The president is now directly campaigning on Musk — and other high-profile and wealthy Silicon Valley VCs — supporting Trump’s bid.

“I’m sick,” Biden wrote on Musk’s social media site X on Wednesday after testing positive for COVID, before revealing a bait-and-switch in the next post: “of Elon Musk and his rich buddies trying to buy this election.”

Hours earlier, Biden’s campaign sent out a fundraising text saying that “the richest person in the world is now on Team MAGA” and accused Musk of “using his fortune to try to control our democracy.”

Biden centering Musk in his campaign is a notable escalation, considering he spent most of his presidency seemingly pretending the billionaire didn’t exist — like when he famously held an “EV Summit” in 2021 where Tesla wasn’t invited; or when he said that Detroit — not Tesla — was “leading the world in electric vehicles.” 

Campaigning against Musk’s involvement is a gamble given the billionaire’s sway over Silicon Valley and the tech industry, in general. A swath of Silicon Valley’s richest are backing the super PAC Musk is reportedly contributing to, including Sequoia Capital partners Shaun Maguire and Doug Leone. Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz announced they will financially support Trump’s campaign largely due to the presidential candidate’s support for crypto, stance on AI as well as Biden’s proposal to tax unrealized capital gains. Musk confidant David Sacks has been leading the charge to drum up even more support for Trump, not just on X but also in the real world, as he spoke onstage this week at the Republican National Convention. 

Of course, with Biden’s campaign under threat, it’s possible he may not see much downside to putting a spotlight on Musk’s involvement. After all, Musk, Sacks and other power players like Peter Thiel were already animated enough to push Trump to pick JD Vance as his vice presidential nominee before Biden made the Tesla CEO a focus of his campaigning. And the super PAC many of these people are piling money into was formed in June.

Whether Biden slighted Musk because of his anti-union stance, or his embrace of far-right policies, almost doesn’t matter. Being ignored clearly bothered Musk — he brings it up a lot.

Musk interacted with the Trump administration in a few ways, including serving on his economic advisory council, but he had never outright supported him as a candidate. 

Meanwhile, Musk has benefited materially from and during Biden’s presidency. The Inflation Reduction Act set Tesla (and its battery partner Panasonic) up to $41 billion in credits by 2032. Tesla hit its highest valuation ever in 2021 amid the broader wave of EV optimism (and after Hertz promised a large bulk purchase of Musk’s cars). SpaceX and its satellite business Starlink has been a repeat winner of defense and other government contracts. And he did ultimately end up meeting with Biden at the White House in September 2023. 

But his companies are also facing multiple federal investigations, some of which started during Biden’s presidency. He’s clearly more ideologically aligned with Trump, and there are reasons to believe his companies would continue to benefit from another Trump presidency.

Biden embracing anti-Musk rhetoric as a result is already helping him financially: On Thursday afternoon, Biden campaign spokesperson Mia Ehrenberg wrote on X that the post calling out “Musk and his rich buddies” was “the second best raising social post” for the campaign in more than a year.