Elon Musk tweets he leans towards Ron DeSantis for President in 2024 | World News

Tesla Inc. chief govt officer Elon Musk says he’s leaning towards backing Florida Governor Ron DeSantis within the 2024 presidential race, the most recent sign of a pro-Republican tilt from the world’s wealthiest man as he spars with the federal government over labor and collision investigations.

In a sequence of tweets beginning about 3:28 am in New York on Wednesday, Musk stated he’d voted Republican for the primary time in backing Mayra Flores, who flipped a Texas Home district from Democrats in a particular election this week.

Musk stated “tbd” when requested if he’d help a Republican for president, after which replied that he was leaning towards DeSantis and that he was pondering of making a “Tremendous Reasonable Tremendous PAC” to again centrist candidates.

DeSantis has positioned himself as a staunch conservative and inheritor obvious to Donald Trump. He has drawn criticism from many Democrats, public well being authorities and advocates for LGBTQ rights for insurance policies that scaled again pandemic public well being precautions in his state and that police grade-school schooling on sexual orientation and gender, together with laws his opponents have derided because the “don’t say ‘homosexual’” invoice.

DeSantis is searching for re-election to a second time period this yr however is extensively thought-about a possible 2024 Republican presidential challenger, even when Trump decides to run once more as he has teased.

The Florida governor trails Trump in lots of polls forecasting a possible GOP presidential main discipline however leads in some surveys when Trump isn’t included.

DeSantis ran forward of Trump in a straw ballot throughout this month’s Western Conservative Summit in Colorado and was the overwhelming alternative for the GOP nomination if Trump doesn’t run once more in a Conservative Political Motion Convention straw ballot earlier this yr.

His workplace didn't instantly reply to a request for touch upon Musk’s help.

Musk, who supported Democrat Andrew Yang for president in 2020, additionally backed billionaire actual property developer Rick Caruso for mayor of Los Angeles earlier this month. He tweeted final month that whereas he voted for Democrats previously, he'll now vote Republican as a result of Democrats “have change into the occasion of division & hate, so I can not help them.” 

He has additionally steadily ratcheted up criticisms of President Joe Biden’s administration, alleging that Biden is just too beholden to labor and that Democrats stymie enterprise efforts. 

Biden, in flip, has shrugged off Musk’s jabs, together with warnings on the economic system. Earlier this month he dismissively wished the billionaire “plenty of luck” in efforts to land on the moon. 

Biden steadily celebrates American electric-vehicle makers with unionized workforces, however has seldom talked about Tesla, which leads the business. Tesla staff aren’t unionized.

The Nationwide Freeway Visitors Security Administration introduced earlier this month that it’s increasing its analysis of how Tesla’s automated driver program, referred to as Autopilot, handles crash scenes with first-responder automobiles. The probe has steadily widened and poses the chance of a recall order.