Tech billionaire Elon Musk is revealing more and more views that align him with the right-wing political spectrum in the US. He wrote on Twitter on Wednesday that the US Democrats had become a “party of division and hatred”. That’s why he will vote for the Republicans in the future.
The 50-year-old boss of the electric car manufacturer Tesla also railed against the elite Yale University as “the epicenter of the intellectual woke virus that is trying to destroy civilization”. Blaming the so-called “woke” culture, which at its core is about fighting discrimination and exclusion, is part of the repertoire of arch-conservatives in the United States.
Musk received immediate applause for his comments from right-wing MP Lauren Boebert, a supporter of ex-President Donald Trump and an advocate of extremely lax gun laws, who is against corona protection measures, abortion, gay marriage and the switch to renewable energy. “Welcome to the right page Elon,” she wrote on Twitter.
Musk said he used to vote for the Democrats “because they were (largely) the party of kindness.” Musk had already tweeted an illustration at the end of April that suggested that he had not changed his political position over the years – but that the Democrats had slipped more and more to the left over time.
The political camps in the US are indeed more polarized than they have been for a long time, but scientific studies speak against Musk’s reading. According to a study by the polling institute Pew Research Center Republicans have moved more to the right than Democrats to the left over the years. The Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik from Berlin came to similar conclusions: The Republican Party “has become much more conservative over the past five decades, while the Democratic Party has only moved slightly in the liberal direction,” it says in a study from the past year, for which the voting behavior in the US Congress was evaluated. From the point of view of many political observers, the rhetoric of Trump, who became the dominant force in the Republican Party, contributes to the division of US society.
In his tweet, Musk now also wrote that a “dirty tricks campaign” could be expected against him. He suggested that this was related to his political statements.
In fact, there have been media reports for some time that the US Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating Musk’s current takeover attempt on Twitter. Among other things, he announced that he had reached the five percent participation mark eleven days later than required for his share purchases. That saved Musk money: By violating the rules, he was able to buy shares cheaper in eleven days, because when his entry on Twitter became public, the price immediately jumped up.
Musk agreed with Twitter’s board of directors to acquire the online service for around $44 billion. In the past few days, however, he has accused Twitter of making false statements about the number of fake and bot accounts. That sent Twitter shares plummeting. So far it has been unclear whether Musk will now try to push the price down or prepare the ground for an exit from the deal.