The News
Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., talked with one of Elon Musk’s “senior confidants” on Thursday about whether the ex-DOGE leader, now feuding with Donald Trump, might want to help the Democratic Party in the midterms.
“Having Elon speak out against the irrational tariff policy, against the deficit exploding Trump bill, and the anti-science and anti-immigrant agenda can help check Trump’s unconstitutional administration,” Khanna told Semafor on Friday. “I look forward to Elon turning his fire against MAGA Republicans instead of Democrats in 2026.”
Khanna, who has known Musk for more than a decade, has long argued that Democrats unwisely pushed him away from their party.
Now the world’s wealthiest man, Musk benefited from the Obama administration’s clean energy investments, defending them against Republican attacks in the 2012 election. He supported Democratic nominees for president until 2024, when he endorsed Trump for president — and spent more to help elect him than he had for any Democrat.
Room for Disagreement
Since Musk began attacking the Trump-backed GOP tax bill as an “abomination” this week, Democrats in Congress have amplified his criticism and even adopted some of his language.
But few besides Khanna have gone as far as talking about bringing Musk back into the Democratic tent; most Democrats are furious at Musk’s DOGE work to dismantle parts of the federal government and are confident that he is a political liability for Trump.
“How great is it that that dipshit Elon Musk is out?” Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota said at last Friday’s Democratic fish fry in South Carolina, after Musk left the administration. “The decisions he was making were literally killing people, so he could dance around and act like he was doing something.”
Musk was a “historic villain” whose unpopularity had helped Wisconsin Democrats win the state’s April 1 supreme court race by 10 points, said state Democratic Party chairman Ben Wikler.
At their “Fighting Oligarchy” rallies, the largest political events since Trump was sworn in, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., torched Musk as the embodiment of what Democrats and fair-minded Americans should be against.
David’s view
Some Democrats believe that Musk could have stayed in their coalition, had they paid him a little more respect — specifically, had Joe Biden invited Musk to the White House electric vehicle summit early in his presidency. Khanna is in that camp.
Others counter that the party’s overall shift leftward after 2016 alienated Musk, who was never coming back. He clashed with Elizabeth Warren (“Senator Karen”) over the idea of a wealth tax, and with progressives over the “woke mind virus” that he blamed for the gender transition of his third child.
That’s the camp where most Democrats are, although some — like Walz — see this as a political opportunity.
Still, the idea of an irate multibillionaire making problems for Republicans is enticing to plenty of Democrats, who have not been above meddling in GOP primaries to help weaker candidates win nominations.
What if Musk made Republicans burn money to defend their incumbents, as he slammed them with TV ads?
That’s all theoretical, as Musk said last month that he would do “a lot less” political spending now that he’d achieved his goal of electing Trump. If Musk is sincere about the political views he posts about on X, he is completely at odds with the Democratic Party, and the best they could hope for is him making trouble for Republicans out of spite.
Notable
In Politico, Holly Otterbein and Lisa Kashinsky wrote about the Democrats who hoped that Musk would have a “villain-to-hero” arc, and help them beat Trump. But Khanna was the only voice in the party who fully believed it could happen.