Gary Zhou 
His messages of support for the presidential bids of Andrew Yang (and Kanye West) aside, Elon Musk has remained somewhat quiet as of late about his position on the forthcoming 2020 US Presidential Elections. During his appearance on Kara Swisher’s Sway podcast in September, Musk noted that he would watch the presidential debates, but apart from that, the CEO was relatively quiet, focusing instead on the ventures of Tesla and SpaceX on Twitter, as well as his trademark humor.
The clear intentions of Musk to stay politically neutral this year are underlined by the fact that, to date, he has contributed nothing to any presidential candidate. With a net worth of $90.3 billion, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO is currently ranked as the 5th richest person in the world, but federal filings show that this year he has not submitted any political contributions at all. Musk’s last presidential campaign contribution was posted five years ago, when he gave Hillary $5,000 for America.
As Forbes reported, this election cycle is very interesting in Musk’s neutral stance on US politics, especially given that at least 100 billionaires and their spouses have made six-figure contributions to committees endorsing either Donald Trump or Joe Biden, the Republican and Democratic Party presidential candidates. A spokeswoman for Musk refused to comment on the political leanings of the CEO.
Interestingly enough, in the past, Musk has caught some flak for his previous political donations, particularly a 2018 donation of $38,900 to GOP PAC Protect the House. What Musk’s critics seemed to have forgotten to note then was that the CEO also gave the Democratic Victory Fund, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee a whopping $70,300 the same year.
This was stressed on Twitter by Musk, when he denied reports that he was a top GOP donor. “Reports that I am a top donor to GOP are categorically false. I am not a top donor to any political party,” he wrote.
Overall, the first year in which Musk posted no political donations was 2020. Musk has contributed to politics since becoming an American citizen in 2002, but his contributions never crossed the six-figure mark until 2018. Since then, in January 2019, Musk has only contributed $5,000 to the political action committee of SpaceX, the Space Exploration Technologies Corp. PAC, which has earned 667,010 dollars since that date. It remains to be seen if Musk’s no-donation policy will continue in the years to come.
Musk is a registered independent, but, in recent months, he has drawn the wrath of many politicians. He also garnered support from both sides of the aisle at the same time. When Musk’s attempts to reopen Tesla’s Fremont Factory gained support from high-profile politicians from both the Republican and Democratic parties, this became especially noteworthy back in May. For instance, both US President Donald Trump and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi expressed their support for the CEO’s initiative in the days leading up to the reopening of the Fremont Factory.
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