Elon Musk Distances Himself From Possible Trump Presidency
Doubt and Denial
Donald Trump has reportedly been discussing bringing multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk into his second White House term should he win re-election — but the entrepreneur himself is denying he ever got an offer to join the team.
In response to the Wall Street Journal's reporting, which was based on a number of anonymous sources, Musk tweeted that "there have not been any discussions of a role for me in a potential Trump Presidency."
Notably, the mercurial CEO did not address the article's other key claims, including that he had pitched Trump on a voter fraud prevention project or that he was lobbying other business leaders against voting for President Joe Biden's re-election.
In March, Musk tweeted that he is "not donating money to either candidate for US President," though of course, there are other forms of donations and electoral influencing besides financial, and those sorts of non-denials are able to cover all manner of sins that aren't explicitly referenced.
Fire and Fury
Throughout the course of his daily tweeting, the X-formerly-Twitter owner also denied a Bloomberg report — which was, once again, based on an anonymous source — claiming that he'd been advising Trump on crypto policy and that the GOP frontrunner had been considering inviting him to speak at the Republican National Convention.
"Pretty sure I’ve never discussed crypto with Trump," the billionaire tweeted, "although I am generally in favor of things that shift power from government to the people, which crypto can do."
What bearing, if any, these denials will have on the once-tense relationship between these two controversial moguls remains to be seen. Earlier this year, reports suggested that Trump had made overtures to Musk about buying his failing Twitter clone, Truth Social, in what was seen as a thawing of their friends-to-enemies arc — though obviously, that purported deal proposal didn't go through.
Overall, this update to the ballad of Trump and Musk is a parable in learning to take anonymously sourced claims with a grain of salt — or, perhaps, a reminder that these two are some of the most wishy-washy figures to ever hit American business and politics.
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