Elon Musk’s unconventional and highly entertaining swing through Pennsylvania in support of Donald Trump could make a big impact in the final days of the campaign in what is shaping up to be the most important swing state in the country.
Musk already made waves in the race for the White House earlier this summer when he endorsed Trump in an X post just hours after the former president was nearly killed near Butler, Pennsylvania. That post, which included a video of Trump pumping his fist after being grazed by an assassin’s bullet, has now garnered some 220 million views.
But unlike most celebrity endorsements which end with a few supportive words on social media and perhaps some appearances on friendly cable news networks, Musk has devoted significant time and energy to making the case for Trump directly to voters. In addition to investing a reported $75 million to elect Trump through his America PAC, Musk has on a daily basis shared pro-Trump messaging to his 202 million followers on X, which he owns, and has even sparred with liberal media pundits about why a Kamala Harris presidency would be so disastrous for the country.
In his latest effort to boost Trump, Musk embarked on a tour across Pennsylvania, hosting a series of townhalls in the state he has called the “linchpin” for the 2024 election. Hundreds of Trump supporters, Musk enthusiasts, and curious locals gathered to hear the idiosyncratic billionaire speak on a range of issues, ranging from SpaceX’s recent launches to concerns about electronic voting machines.
A major theme of Musk’s appearances has been encouraging Pennsylvanians to register to vote and register their friends and family to vote. The deadline to register to vote in the Keystone State was October 21.
Musk’s America PAC began its voter registration drive in battleground states earlier this fall by offering people $47 (Trump would become the 47th president if he is re-elected) if they get one registered voter to sign a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments to the Constitution. The initiative is a clever way to skirt campaign finance laws which forbid direct payments for registering to vote.
Musk upped the ante last week in Pennsylvania by offering $100 instead of $47. He also announced that America PAC would be giving away $1 million to a random petition signer every day through the election. A Pennsylvania man named John Dreher became the first $1 million winner in Harrisburg on Saturday.
At the townhalls themselves, Musk has also made a compelling case for Trump – not from the perspective of a politician, but from the perspective of one of the greatest innovators, visionaries, and business leaders of this century. “Kamala is just a puppet, if the teleprompter breaks, she doesn’t know what to say,” Musk said at one rally. “I just call it ‘The Machine.’ When the Biden puppet was not working out, they got a new puppet. It’s all the same machine. It’s undemocratic what was done to Biden. It’s bizarre to claim Trump is a danger to democracy when what happened to Biden was entirely undemocratic. It doesn’t make sense.”
At another rally, Musk slammed Democrats’ efforts to import mass numbers of illegal aliens into swing states. “The Democrats are bringing in illegals, deliberately, into swing states,” he said. “When you look at margins of victories that may be 10-20,000 votes, and then you bring in 200,000 illegals and you legalize them, then you won’t have any swing states. Every state will go blue. Then at that point you don’t have a democracy.”
In one of the more amusing clips to come out of the events, Musk detailed the infuriating level of bureaucracy that SpaceX had to navigate in order to obtain permission to launch rockets. Some of that red tape included performing studies to assess the risks to sharks and whales from SpaceX rockets landing in the ocean. The company also had to capture a seal and perform tests on it to ensure that the sonic boom from SpaceX launches wouldn’t “distress” the slippery mammals too much.
While it might be easy to dismiss a handful of relatively small townhalls as a gimmick or sideshow, the panicked reaction from elected Democrats and the media shows just how effective Musk’s Keystone State tour could be.
Pennsylvania Democrat Governor Josh Shapiro was so alarmed about Musk’s $1 million giveaway, in fact, that he went on NBC to suggest that law enforcement should “take a look” at the move. Pennsylvania Democrat Senator John Fetterman likewise warned that while Democrats “make fun of [Musk] jumping up and down and things like that… I would just say that they are doing that at our peril.” The New York Times, meanwhile, worried that “Musk is betting on his own persuasive powers to help Mr. Trump win.”
During a time when high-profile individuals like Musk invite vilification in the media and ostracization from their peers for breaking with Democrat Party orthodoxy, Musk’s personal courage in strongly backing Trump also should not be ignored. As Musk himself has acknowledged, in addition to making himself persona non grata with the media and societal elites who used to embrace him, his support for Trump has led to death threats and open hostility from the Biden administration toward the companies he owns. “Hopefully I don’t get a shot,” Musk joked after handing out the first $1 million check in Pennsylvania, dubbing himself “public enemy no. 2” behind Trump.
If Trump indeed wins Pennsylvania this year, particularly if he wins it close, we may well look back on Musk’s recent efforts there as a critical factor.
Shane Harris is a writer and political consultant from Southwest Ohio. You can follow him on X @shaneharris513.
