At times, his remarks have raised concerns that he has firmly ensconced himself among right-wing conspiracy theorists. When he tweeted about the attack on Ms. Pelosi’s husband, he shared the baseless claim that there was “a small chance there was more to it than meets the eye”. He later deleted the tweet, which linked to an article from a fringe website.
He also said he would support Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis for president in 2024, though his endorsement was not particularly decisive. He only replied “Yes” when someone on Twitter asked him about it. Mr. DeSantis, a conservative conservative, would be an odd choice for someone who claims to want a centrist administration in Washington.
Mr. Musk has always maintained that his concerns about Twitter’s previous management related to the ability of a small group of company employees, whom he described as “far left”, to censor content. And last week he applauded tweets about internal communications before taking over. The notices, which were given to two writers who posted their findings on Twitter, calling them the Twitter files, showed how the company went about deciding what information to suppress.
It’s been a mixed bag of revelations. Some showed how Twitter employees made it harder to see tweets from a Stanford University professor who warned of how Covid lockdowns could harm children — a view that many public health experts have long since accepted. Other documents show how more conventional, conspiracy-theory-embracing conservatives shut down, such as Dan Bongino, the radio host who was one of the biggest perpetrators of lies about the 2020 election.
However, Mr. Musk has not claimed to have a deep commitment to Republican policy, which is consistent with his attitude before taking over Twitter.
He was highly critical of climate change deniers and said he was proud of how Tesla pushed the rest of the auto industry to embrace electric vehicles. In 2020, he revealed that he had spoken with Mr. Trump numerous times about the importance of renewable energy development, which the former president rejected in favor of traditional fossil fuel-based sources. And Mr. Musk stepped down from Mr. Trump’s business boards after the administration pulled out of the Paris climate accord.
In a 2020 interview with The New York Times, he described his politics as “middle-of-the-road.” “I am socially very liberal. And then economically right of center, maybe, or center. I don’t know. I am clearly not a communist.”
