Tesla CEO and X owner Elon Musk, who supports Republican presidential nominee former US President Donald Trump, gestures as he speaks about voting during an America PAC Town Hall in Folsom, Pennsylvania, US.
Credit: Reuters Photo
Is Elon Musk running for president?
Of course not. A South African-born billionaire, Musk cannot legally run and, anyway, he has invested over $75 million in trying to get Donald Trump elected.
Somehow that mission brought Musk, the world's richest person, to a high school auditorium in suburban Philadelphia on a surreal Thursday evening where, if you blinked, you might have forgotten momentarily that he was not the candidate.
There was a military-grade security apparatus that protected his every movement. There was a crowded press riser, crummy Wi-Fi (at least for those who couldn't procure the secret Starlink password), and a well-organized advance staff on headsets and production aides wielding professional video cameras. There was a giant American flag in the middle of a stage and a country and rock playlist straight out of a town hall in Iowa or New Hampshire during the Republican nominating season.
Musk walked onto the stage to Brooks & Dunn's "Only in America," a staple of Trump campaign rallies. "I haven't been politically active before," he said to a rapturous and sometimes rowdy crowd. "I'm politically active now because I think the future of America, the future of civilization is at stake."
Musk was there to encourage Pennsylvanians to "go hog wild" on voter registration and to persuade their friends to sign up before the state's deadline, on Monday. But, still, much of the event ended up being about himself.
Never known for his humility, Musk is betting on his own persuasive powers to help Trump win, just as he has bet on himself during existential crises at his companies, like the social platform X, SpaceX and Tesla. Musk has described Pennsylvania as the "linchpin" to Trump's hopes of returning to the White House.
He is hardly a conventional surrogate -- an awkward speaker, with none of the polish of the stand-ins Vivek Ramaswamy or Donald Trump Jr. So why host his own town hall? Was Musk here as a company founder to listen to customers? Was he here to collect the identities of the hard-core supporters who could be turned into volunteers for his pro-Trump organization, America PAC? Or was he just having some fun as a political tourist?
His event was a spectacle.
Musk appeared smitten with the crowd and clearly entertained during the hourlong event. The audience of just under 700 stood for several minutes after he pranced onto the stage, laughed at his jokes and showered him with praise. One person called him a "hero," a second congratulated him on SpaceX's launch, and a third quietly begged him to buy another social-media platform. The crowd of people waiting to ask him a question numbered as high as 50.
Musk, wearing a mustard-yellow MAGA hat, was hardly offering campaign talking points. He gave his opinions on everything from artificial intelligence to the Israel-Hamas conflict, straying far afield to talk about the election technology made by Dominion Voting Systems, the Food and Drug Administration and the aftershocks of World War II.
Musk went for over 10 minutes at a time without even mentioning Trump or Pennsylvania.
Then again, that is all what Musk does -- and why he has long had such a following.
There are almost no other business leaders who can create such a scene, and Musk is able to deploy it to generate media attention for Trump. He is planning several more Pennsylvania town halls in the coming days.
Polling has shown that Musk is wildly popular with young men, and several attendees said they came to the event not because they were die-hard supporters of Trump -- but because they were die-hard supporters of Musk. There were SpaceX, crypto and "Occupy Mars" T-shirts, a few cybertrucks, and copies of "Elon Musk," the biography written by Walter Isaacson, that they hoped he would sign.
Several attendees said they came for the show -- the "comedy" said one -- or to see a billionaire at their alma mater, Ridley High School. A few were actively trying to refer friends to sign a petition in support of the First and Second Amendments so they could get $47 from Musk -- a proposal he announced this month to help identify likely Trump voters. Others had become interested in Musk through their children who were interested in space or engineering and idolized him.
One woman, Lisa Koenig, even brought a sealed envelope addressed to Musk containing her son's resume with the hopes of hand-delivering it to him: "From my son who is studying aerospace engineering," it read.
Jen Colleluori, a nonprofit employee and Tesla shareholder who brought a copy of Isaacson's book with her, had never been to a pro-Trump event before, but was one of several people who said they came because of her admiration for Musk. "I love them both," she said.
Like any practiced candidate making a whistle-stop tour, Musk knew to highlight some local color: He stressed that he had spent three college years in Philadelphia, posed with a personalized high school football jersey, and tried to handle a question about Pennsylvania water rights.
Musk even took a break from the town hall to sign a kid's Phillies hat -- and then invited the child onstage for a photo.
And when a disgruntled local activist tried to get his attention, he learned what politicians know well about how unruly town halls can get.
Musk was pressed by a Delaware County, Pennsylvania, activist, Greg Stenstrom, to take a copy of his book that showcased purported examples of election fraud. Musk appeared genuinely interested in learning more, but also slowly became cognizant of the problems that he might court by accepting the book. "Let's not get contentious," he said, as the crowd jeered.
Stenstrom couldn't get Musk to take the book. Musk, he told The New York Times after the event, had handled the situation "like a politician."