Elon Musk’s employees may share his vision of colonizing Mars, building electric robotaxis, implanting brain chips, and digging holes. But they don’t share his policies.
Even though Musk spent more than $75 million to elect former President Donald Trump and other Republicans, employees at his three biggest companies (Company X, Tesla, and SpaceX) It overwhelmingly donates to Democratic candidates and political action committees during each election cycle. Most of their contributions are relatively small and go directly to candidates. The data suggests that Musk’s companies are following a new Silicon Valley pattern (well known across the industry), with executives leaning Republican and the average person leaning Democratic. There are many.
Donations will be matched with past donations. In 2020, SpaceX and Tesla employees donated seven times more and nine times more to Democratic candidates and their PACs than Republicans, respectively, according to OpenSecrets data. Employees at Twitter, which Musk didn’t own at the time, donated 15 times more money to Democratic and progressive PACs during the election cycle, according to OpenSecret. Representatives for SpaceX, Tesla and X did not respond to Semaphore’s requests for comment.
Federal Election Commission data shows that employees at Mr. Musk’s other companies (Neuralink, xAI, The Boring Company) have made very few political contributions.
