Elon Musk may be the biggest beneficiary of Donald Trump’s re-election, surpassing even Trump himself.
According to a new report from Bloomberg, Musk’s social media platform X is currently looking to raise money from investors at a valuation of $44 billion. If that number sounds familiar, it’s because that’s precisely what Musk paid for the company formerly known as Twitter when he acquired it in October 2022.
In the years since Musk took over and rebranded the entire platform as X, its revenue has plummeted by nearly half of what it made as Twitter. That’s billions of dollars in lost revenue.
Musk, alongside his financial backers, now seems to have overpaid for the company. One investor, Fidelity, calculated in September of last year that its investment had lost 79 percent of its value compared to when Musk acquired it.
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However, the U.S. presidential election changed the game. Musk threw his support behind Trump, establishing a PAC to back the Republican candidate with hundreds of millions of dollars. That investment paid off when Trump won. Now, Trump has appointed Musk to oversee the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), granting him significant influence over federal spending.
Elon Musk’s DOGE.gov website can apparently be edited by anyone
Musk’s companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, have secured billions of dollars in government funding over the years. However, his close relationship with President Trump is now benefiting his businesses in ways beyond government contracts.
Since Musk took over X, the platform has seen a significant loss in advertisers due to content issues and some of Musk’s own controversial statements. Nevertheless, after the election, some advertisers have signaled their return. While it’s unclear how much they’ll spend compared to previous campaigns, notable brands like Apple have begun running ads on X for the first time in years.
Additionally, some investors in Musk’s X, who were struggling to sell off their debt, recently found success. Bloomberg reports that some were able to offload billions of dollars of this debt at “no discount to face value,” meaning they likely got back most if not all of what they put in.
With X preparing to enable financial transactions on the platform and integrate Musk’s AI company, xAI, and its Grok chatbot, the company is now seeking funds at the same $44 billion valuation Musk originally “overpaid.” Thanks to Trump’s election, Musk is now in a stronger position to raise the necessary capital.
