He had seemed to be trying for a while, but in 2024, Elon Musk finally went off the rails. In passing, he went ‘all-in’ on a Trump victory and won with flying colours. We won’t be rid of The First Buddy in 2025.
It started midweek, though: as a year in which the tech mogul, as usual, went on a slightly deranged rampage. In January, he was allowed to visit Auschwitz, thus cleaning up the last bit of 2023 in which he had made anti-Semitic statements, but after that, it was mainly business as usual.
Highlight: In July, there was a rumour that Musk wanted to fertilize a potential Mars colony—which he foresaw within forty years; he told American presenter Ben Shapiro—primarily with his sperm. Musk is also generous regarding procreation: he welcomed his twelfth child in June. That was not with Georgia Meloni, but he felt compelled to deny a romantic relationship with the Italian prime minister in September.
Also started in January was a soap opera about the generous remuneration that Tesla’s board of directors wanted to grant him. Small shareholders contested that decision, but the battle was still not settled despite several court rulings favouring the small shareholders. In revenge, Musk moved his companies out of the American state of Delaware, where they were established because of the favourable tax climate.
At home in Mar-A-Lago
Then, there was politics, with Musk ultimately betting on a Trump victory. Although the tech mogul vowed in March that he would not support anyone in the US presidential election, by July there had already been talk that the wealthiest man in the world would be throwing money at The Don’s campaign. The failed assassination attempt on the candidate was the moment to confirm what had been clear for a long time: he was going for another Trump victory.
That coming out was accompanied by an hours-long, remarkably uncritical conversation between Musk and Trump on X in mid-August. Musk would eventually pump millions of dollars into the campaign and interfere with its practical rollout. The result? A permanent spot at the table at Mar-A-Lago as “First Buddy” and the pet name “Uncle Elon” because of Trump’s granddaughter Kai.
Arguing on X
In the meantime, Musk remained a First Twitterer in addition to First Buddy—sorry, X’er—and for that company, it was an even more turbulent year. If the CEO had fired all the platform’s moderators in 2023, he had no choice but to hire them again in January to at least keep images of child abuse away. His tone did not change a bit: he considered moderation another word for censorship.
On a technical level, Musk promised that there would be an X app for smart TVs, but for Elon, the platform also mainly served to cause arguments: a fight with Australia about his interpretation of freedom of speech, which he won; trouble with Brazil, where a high court judge demanded that a local representation be allowed to be present in the country. Ultimately, X would be offline for a few months in South America, but Musk tied the knot.
Trumpian resentment
The icing on the cake was when Musk fought with his advertisers in August. Or rather, former advertisers, whom he then took to court because they no longer bought advertising on X. Musk, were regularly to be found in court anyway. Throughout the year, he also fought a battle with OpenAI.
As a former co-founder of the company, he felt that the developer of ChatGPT had deviated too far from his original objectives to pursue a non-profit motive after a deal with Microsoft. ‘Not true’, OpenAI itself responded. In a fit of Trumpian resentment, Musk banned using iPhones in his companies and expanded the complaint to Microsoft.
The fact that he had also set up a new company around AI since last year might have contributed to it. Nevertheless, the entrepreneur promised to make the source code of the chatbot Grok—with which almost anything is allowed—public. If xAI is already worth 24 billion dollars, you might be able to afford that.
Cyber tricks recalled
Musk also made his mark on mobile, although Tesla did not precisely have an eventful year. In March, an attack was carried out on a German brand factory. The cyber truck launched with much fanfare at the end of 2023 suffered from blocked pedals and had to be recalled several times.
And the everyday Tesla? It turned out not to be immune to hackers. The self-driving car that Musk has been working on for years was presented in October and turned out to be a robot taxi. The vehicle is expected to go into production in 2026.
“If this fails, I’m fucked,” Musk said in an unguarded moment about his support for Trump. The Tesla boss, X-aficionado, and increasingly unpleasant human being has gambled heavily this year and won. Musk will not only end 2024 as the first person worth more than $400 trillion, but he will start 2025 as head of the agency tasked with cutting spending on the US government. That will give him a significant say in policy around crypto, space travel, and especially regulation and deregulation.
Judging by the final weeks of this year, that will be accompanied by some uproar. In just a week and a half, he has already poured gasoline on the polarization fire in Great Britain and Germany, put a friend in charge of NASA, and almost forced Republican senators to shut down.
Hold on to the branches of the trees.