Comment on Elon Musk’s $100 Million-Plus Gift to Trump

“The closest presidential election in modern memory enters its final, frenetic days with neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump able to be confident of victory,” the Washington Post reports. “With tens of millions of early voters casting their ballots already, the outcome now depends on whether the campaigns can mobilize their bases and persuade the tiny fraction of the electorate still undecided about whom to support or whether to vote at all.” “Neither Harris, the current vice president, nor Trump, the former president, has a lead outside the statistical margin of error in any of the seven battleground states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, according to a recent Washington Post-Schar School survey and The Post’s current poll average aggregator.”

New York Times: “Where Mr. Trump goes, television cameras follow. And by coming to one of the media capitals of the United States, the Trump team is aware that he will acquire mountains of coverage in the campaign’s final stretch that will be broadcast and streamed to voters in the crucial battleground states and the rest of the country…” “That type of focused media attention in the final days of a tightly fought contest, when both campaigns are battling to win the support of voters who may not follow politics or political news closely, is significant.”

“Long before he became one of Donald Trump’s biggest donors and campaign surrogates, South African-born Elon Musk worked illegally in the United States as he launched his entrepreneurial career after ditching a graduate studies program in California,” the Washington Post reports. “Musk in recent months has amplified the Republican presidential candidate’s claims that “open borders” and undocumented immigrants are destroying America, broadcasting those views to more than 200 million followers on the site formerly known as Twitter, which Musk bought in 2022 and later renamed X.” “What Musk has not publicly disclosed is that he did not have the legal right to work while building the company that became Zip2, which sold for about $300 million in 1999.”

A new Washington Post-Schar School poll in Virginia shows Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump, 49% to 43%.

“Israel’s retaliatory strike against Iran took out a critical component in Iran’s ballistic missile program,” Axios reports. “The destruction of the equipment severely damages Iran’s ability to renew its missile stockpile and could deter Iran from further massive missile strikes against Israel.” Los Angeles Times: Israel retaliation bombardment of Iran, relatively limited, is over — for now.

New York Times Magazine: “Robert Paxton thought the label was overused. But now he’s alarmed by what he sees in global politics — including Trumpism.”