How Elon Musk’s influence has grown both online and offline in 2024
How Elon Musk’s influence has grown both online and offline in 2024
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Elon Musk started 2024 as the controversial owner of a social media platform, but ends it as one of the most powerful individuals in the world and a key adviser to the incoming US president. The debate around the billionaire has moved on dramatically over the last 12 months, from whether the way he was running X, formerly Twitter, would be viable or sustainable in the long-term, to whether Mr Musk’s own influence over global politics through his wealth and social media megaphone made him a threat to democracy.
The biggest story of 2024 around Mr Musk has been has dramatic swing behind the US President-elect Donald Trump ahead of the November election and how Mr Musk effectively reconfigured X into a vehicle to support the Republican candidate, alongside his personal fortune.
The result of that support has seen the entrepreneur catapulted to the very centre of Mr Trump’s inner circle as a key adviser – jointly leading a new unofficial government department which will focus on efficiency and has proposed cutting up to two trillion dollars – a third – of the US federal budget.
It means Mr Musk will go into 2025 with more power and influence than ever before, perfectly highlighted by a single post from him about his dislike of a bill to fund the US government, which then suddenly collapsed despite having previously had bipartisan support.
