Elon Musk Endorses Trump, Moments After Shooting at His Rally

Elon Musk wearing a black leather jacket and black shirt.
   "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery," Elon Musk wrote online on Saturday.
   
   The tech billionaire Elon Musk endorsed former President Donald J.| Trump's presidential campaign mere minutes after Mr. Trump was rushed from the stage at his rally in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
 
   With chaos still unfolding and as Mr. Trump was being rushed to a hospital, Mr. Musk wrote on X, the platform he owns, "I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery. " He later posted a photograph of Mr. Trump moments after the episode and added another message: "Last time America had a candidate this tough was Theodore Roosevelt." 
 
   Mr. Musk's formal endorsement may have been surprising in its speed, about 30 minutes after Mr. Trump was sent down to the ground, but not in its content. Mr. Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, has drifted rightward considerably during the Biden era, and he has spent years bashing Mr. Biden and flirting with a formal statement of support for Mr. Trump. Over at least the last year, allies of Mr. Trump have been seeking the endorsement and financial support of Mr. Musk, who has developed a cult following among the online right.
 
   If he so chooses, Mr. Musk could uncork his fortune, measured at $265 billion by Bloomberg, on Mr. Trump's behalf. Mr. Musk has resisted making major political donations in the past, and has even gone as far as to say that he tries to stay out of politics, despite his conservative rhetoric on immigration and cultural issues.
 
 
 
   Mr. Musk has sparred with Mr. Trump in the past. In October 2022, he reinstated Mr. Trump's account on X, which was then still known as Twitter, after the former president was banned from the platform after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol. But he has since used the social platform, where he has nearly 190 million followers, to attack President Biden over policy decisions and his age.
 
   After endorsing Mr. Trump on Saturday, Mr.| Musk questioned how the Secret Service did not prevent the attack. In one post on X, he promoted the groundless claim that the agency had allowed it to happen.

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   "
Extreme incompetence or it was deliberate," he wrote on X. "Either way, the SS leadership must resign. " 
 
   He then attacked Kimberly Cheatle, the director of the Secret Service, and Alejandro Mayorkas, the Homeland Security secretary, whose department oversees the Secret Service. Mr. Musk has previously clashed with Mr. Mayorkas over the department's handling of immigration at the southern border and also said that the secretary "ought to be in jail."

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