$200M for Trump, $150B in Cuts: Inside Elon Musk’s Political Regrets
Elon Musk has admitted he got swept up in politics during his alliance with Donald Trump — a rare moment of candor from the world’s wealthiest person that arrives alongside some of his most sweeping predictions yet about artificial intelligence, geopolitics, and the future of human civilization. The interview, published Thursday by The Economist, offers a portrait of a man simultaneously reckoning with his political regrets and doubling down on visions that most people would struggle to take seriously — if his track record didn’t complicate the dismissal.
Key takeaways
- Musk backed Donald Trump’s 2024 election campaign with $200 million and ran the Department of Government Efficiency (Doge), overseeing $150 billion in budget cuts.
- He admitted he “got carried away” with politics and said he would likely have stayed focused on his companies instead.
- Musk predicts AI will surpass all human intelligence within five years and that robots will make work optional within ten years.
- He foresees a civil war in the UK within 20 years and says any Ukraine peace deal should include territorial gains for Russia.
- He projects humans will set foot on Mars by 2028 and plans to power his AI venture with datacenters in space.
Elon Musk’s Political Regrets and Role in the Trump Administration
The confession came in a 90-minute conversation recorded at a Tesla factory in Texas — Musk’s first major sit-down since SpaceX floated on the US stock exchange in June, briefly pushing his personal wealth above $1.25 trillion before it settled back to around $750 billion. It was, in other words, the interview of a man at the peak of his financial power choosing to reflect on a political chapter he now views with some ambivalence.
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