The Tesla CEO once hinted he was done with politics – but he’s been leaning further into the international far right

In the period immediately after Musk’s messy departure from the White House, the Tesla CEO repeatedly suggested that he was done with politics. Investors who had pushed him to refocus on his businesses were delighted. Tesla’s stock rose. The months since, however, have proved that Musk has failed to abandon his political preoccupations. He has done the opposite, veering further into election conspiracies and extreme anti-immigration views.

Musk’s political endeavors since leaving the Trump administration have included leveraging his social media platform as a pulpit to influence New York City’s mayoral race and creating an AI-generated, rightwing knockoff of Wikipedia. In interviews, he has said there is a “homeless industrial complex” of nonprofits ruining California and complained that “it should be okay to have white pride”. On X, he proclaimed that the UK would fall into civil war and western civilization would collapse.