Tesla CEO Elon Musk has denied reports that emerged last week that he planned to donate $45 million a month to a Super PAC focused on getting Trump elected.
On Tuesday, Musk appeared on Jordan Peterson’s show, where he said the claim is “simply not true.” “I’m not going to donate $45 million a month to Trump,” he said.
“What I’ve done is created a Pac or Super Pac or whatever you want to call it,” he said. “It’s called America Pac.”
Super PACs, short for Political Action Committees, are independent political organizations to which donors can give unlimited amounts of money, while donations to individuals or groups other than Super PACs are limited.
After the interview with Peterson, Musk answered in X to a clip of the interview that says, “Yes,” and to another tweet that references the reports saying“Yes, it’s ridiculous. I’m making some donations to America PAC, but at a much smaller level and the Pac’s key values are supporting meritocracy and individual liberty. Republicans are overwhelmingly, but not entirely, on the side of merit and liberty.”
The denial comes days after Joe Biden dropped out of the presidential race, endorsing his vice president Kamala Harris, who now has enough delegates to claim the Democratic nomination in August.
Also on Tuesday, the New York Times reported that the Super PAC was made up of former aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign. “The Super PAC has taken on an air of mystery in Trump’s orbit, with other outside groups largely unaware of its plans,” the Times reported.
But the advisers, Generra Peck, who initially ran DeSantis’ campaign, and Phil Cox, a former head of the Republican Governors Association, “may help legitimize her within the Republican establishment as she aims to become one of the leading groups on Trump’s behalf.”
“The intent is to promote the principles that made America great in the first place,” Musk said on Peterson’s show. “I wouldn’t say I’m, say, MAGA,” he added, referring to Trump’s slogan. “I think America is great. I’m more MAG, I make America greater.”
Musk did not clarify how much he plans to donate to the Pac.
The America Pac has already been endorsed by some of Musk’s friends and allies in the tech world, according to the Times. reportedincluding Joe Lonsdale, who co-founded the software company Palantir with Peter Thiel, a major political donor Trump’s newly appointed vice president, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
The Winklevoss twins, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs who have attacked Joe Biden for waging what they called a war on cryptocurrencies through regulation, have also reportedly contributed to the effort, according to the Wall Street Journal. reportedIn June, they praised Trump as “pro-Bitcoin, pro-cryptocurrency, pro-business.”
