The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, contributed no less than $130 million to Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign. This represents a mere four-hundredths of a penny on every dollar Musk owns, and it’s paying off, as the Donald might say, “bigly.” In the week since election day, Musk’s net worth has skyrocketed by $70 billion, reaching an unfathomable total of $320 billion as of November 12.
Inner circle
Musk was a fixture in the campaign’s final weeks, declaring “I’m dark MAGA” and hurling himself around rally stages like a man possessed—much to Trump’s apparent delight. Rabid enthusiasm, combined with financial largesse, won Musk a prominent place in Trump’s inner circle.
Musk bet big on Trump. Now Wall Street’s gamblers are betting even bigger on Musk. Tesla’s market value surged to over $1 trillion after Trump’s victory was confirmed. The erratic billionaire’s electric vehicle (EV) company is now worth more than the next 15 largest automakers combined.
EVs are more popular than ever, but in 2023, they still accounted for only 18% of worldwide auto sales. Once the undisputed king of American EV producers, Tesla saw its US market share plummet from 59.3% in the second quarter of 2023 to 49.7% a year later.
This might suggest that Tesla is wildly overvalued. So what accounts for Wall Street’s newfound confidence in the firm? Investors expect Musk to make massive profits by leveraging his influence in the incoming administration. That influence was already on display last week, when Trump put Musk on the line during a phone call with Ukraine’s beleaguered President, Volodymyr Zelensky.
Musk was a fixture in the campaign’s final weeks, declaring “I’m dark MAGA” and hurling himself around rally stages—much to Trump’s apparent delight. / Image: fair use
An “A team” of corporate gangsters
Musk is assembling an “A team” of corporate gangsters he hopes will guide the second Trump administration. According to Musk, “America’s A team is usually building companies in the private sector. Once in a long time, reforming government is important enough that the A team allocates time to government. This is that time.”
The Financial Times reports that Musk’s vision includes “slashing $2 trillion from the US budget and firing hundreds of thousands from a ‘vast bureaucracy,’ while eliminating regulations he blames for stifling innovation.”
High on Musk’s agenda will be cutting government subsidies for EV producers and buyers. This seems counterintuitive. Doesn’t Tesla benefit from such subsidies? Musk reasons that his Detroit competitors benefit more than he does from the handouts—and that this accounts for Tesla’s declining market share. “Take away the subsidies. It will only help Tesla,” he said.
Merger of big business and the state
Lenin long ago explained that the merger of big business and the state is one of the defining features of capitalism’s final and most parasitic stage—imperialism. Trump appears anxious to give American workers a crystal-clear example, handing corporate kingpins free rein not only over economic policy, but also foreign affairs. According to Axios, “Trump doesn’t want former generals on his national security team and prefers businessmen and CEOs.”
The capitalist state has always been a weapon for defending and advancing the ruling class’s interests, but normally, the capitalists themselves prefer to stand an arm’s length away from the machinery. The early days of Trump’s second administration has them wielding this weapon more directly than we’ve seen in living memory.
Regardless of the Trump-Musk partnership’s ultimate fate, the next four years promise stormy class struggles. / Image: RCA
The inevitable falling out
Alas, the Musk-Trump love affair won’t last forever. One potential sticking point is Trump’s threatened tariffs on China. Tesla’s factory in Shanghai exported over one million cars in its first four years. The company also plans to begin battery production at a nearby plant early next year. Musk needs to maintain a cozy relationship with both the Chinese and American imperialists; a trade war between the two won’t do him any favors.
Over time, Trump will develop his own reasons to dump Musk. As we wrote following the election, “Trump shamelessly appeals to legitimate working-class anger by blaming everyone and everything for the crisis—except the root cause, capitalism.”
Many Trump supporters have illusions in billionaires and businessmen—buying into the idea that they worked hard to “earn” their massive wealth. They hope these alleged geniuses will “fix the economy” and help ordinary people. But Trump 2.0’s assemblage of corporate crooks and fawning loyalists cannot deliver fully on his grandiose promises of a new American “golden age.” To the contrary, the next economic crisis, revived inflation, and/or Trump’s blatant corruption will shatter these illusions.
Now that he’s what they have to work with, Trump’s administration will play a key part in the capitalists’ preparations for a new offensive against the workers. To prop up their failing system, they will try to force millions of workers deeper into destitution. If Trump tries to evade the blame and appease his angry base with a blood sacrifice, Musk may find himself a political lamb worthy of being slain.
Regardless of the Trump-Musk partnership’s ultimate fate, the next four years promise stormy class struggles. After the election, The New York Times predicted, “If Mr. Trump and his coalition fail to create something better than what they have replaced, they will suffer the same fate they’ve inflicted on the fallen Bush, Clinton, and Cheney dynasties. A new force for creative destruction will emerge, possibly on the American left.” The Revolutionary Communists of America are already organizing that very force.