Trump Confirms He Met With Elon Musk: ‘I’ve Liked Him’

Donald Trump (L) and Elon Musk. Joe Raedle/Getty Images; Theo Wargo/Getty Images for TIME

Former President Donald Trump confirmed Monday that he met with Elon Musk but said he’s not sure if the billionaire Tesla CEO will back his reelection bid.

Last week, several media outlets reported that the pair met at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, although few details have been released. Those reports claimed that President Trump held the meeting due to his campaign’s alleged cashflow issues and because of his mounting legal fees.

“I don’t know. I’ve been friendly with him over the years,” President Trump told CNBC. “I’ve helped him; when I was president I, helped him. I’ve liked him. We obviously have opposing views on a minor subject called electric cars,” he added. “I’m all for electric cars, but you have to have all the alternatives also.”

After the reports surfaced, in post on X, Mr. Musk wrote that he would not be donating money to either campaign as president.

“Just to be super clear, I am not donating money to either candidate for US President,” Mr. wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, in a post last week. He did not confirm whether he met with the former president.

Since purchasing the social media website in 2022, Mr. Musk has removed suspensions for a number of prominent conservatives, including President Trump’s account after it was banned in January 2021.

But President Trump has not returned to X, where he used his account extensively during the 2016 election. The only post he’s made in more than three years was in 2023 when he posted his mugshot after being arrested in Fulton County, Georgia. Instead, he frequently uses his own platform Truth Social.

While Mr. Musk wrote that he voted for President Joe Biden in 2020, he told his followers to vote for Republicans during the 2022 midterm elections, he also signaled that he would do the same in 2024.

On X, the Tesla CEO has also boosted some conservative accounts and has increasingly expressed critical views of the Biden administration, and, like President Trump, he has been highly critical of illegal immigration.

In a recent post, Mr. Musk warned that the surge of illegal crossings at the U.S.–Mexico border is a national security issue and could lead to “something far worse” than the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that left nearly 3,000 people dead.

“Unvetted illegal immigrants” coming into the United States is a “national security threat,” he wrote on X. “It is highly probable that the groundwork is being laid for something far worse than 9/11. Just a matter of time,” Mr. Musk said, while suggesting that he believes some of those individuals will illegally vote in U.S. elections.

Earlier this year, he visited the southern border in September and revealed he saw “pretty extreme” numbers of people illegally entering the United States. In a live stream from the Texas town of Eagle Pass, he told viewers that he saw a man entering the United States with teardrop tattoos on his face.

Over the years, there have been rumors that gang members and members of prison gangs receive a teardrop tattoo near their eye for every person they have allegedly murdered. Mr. Musk referred to this, saying that it “means they have murdered someone and they are so proud of having murdered someone that they tattoo one tear on their face for every one person that they killed.”

In another instance this year, the X owner referred to reports of a yellow school bus being used to transport illegal immigrants near Brooklyn’s James Madison High School.

“This is what happens when you run out of hotel rooms. Soon, cities will run out of schools to vacate. Then they will come for your homes,” Mr. Musk wrote on social media about a month ago.

Trump’s Fees

Last month, a judge in New York ordered President Trump and his company to pay $454.2 million and pre-judgment interest for what he said was fraudulently misstating the value of his properties and net worth in financial statements over the years.

Weeks before that, a jury in New York ordered the former president to pay damages to writer E. Jean Carroll for defamation as she claimed he assaulted her in the mid-1990s. The former president has denied her claims and continues to do so on Truth Social, accusing her of fabricating the incident. He was also ordered by a New York jury to pay $5 million to Ms. Carroll in a separate trial over the assault claims in May of last year. The former president has denied any wrongdoing.

This month, a court in the United Kingdom ordered the former president to pay nearly $400,000 for losing a lawsuit that he brought against Christopher Steele, a former intelligence operative, over a dossier that he compiled that contained a number of salacious claims that were later debunked in FBI reports.

Meanwhile, he potentially faces four criminal trials in Washington, Florida, Georgia, and New York City. President Trump has pleaded not guilty to the charges, saying they are politically motivated.