Musk Says He Is ‘All in’ on Trump in US Election

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) speaks on stage as he joins former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5, 2024. (AFP)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) speaks on stage as he joins former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5, 2024. (AFP)
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Musk Says He Is ‘All in’ on Trump in US Election

Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) speaks on stage as he joins former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5, 2024. (AFP)
Tesla CEO Elon Musk (R) speaks on stage as he joins former US President and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during a campaign rally at site of his first assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania on October 5, 2024. (AFP)

Elon Musk is ramping up his public support of Donald Trump, telling Tucker Carlson in a conversation streamed Monday that he is "all in" on the Republican presidential candidate.

After appearing alongside Trump at a weekend rally, the world's richest man used a cozy two-hour chat with Carlson to push right-wing talking points, including what he said was the threat to democracy if Democrat Kamala Harris prevails in November's election.

"My view is that if Trump doesn't win this election, it's the last election we're going to have," the Tesla and SpaceX boss told former Fox News host Carlson.

Musk, who has increasingly courted controversy in recent years, said he believed "illegals" -- migrants -- were being deliberately transported to a handful of key states, where if they are eventually granted citizenship, they would become Democrat voters.

"Now these swing-state margins are sometimes ten- twenty-thousand votes. So what happens if you put hundreds of thousands of people into each swing state?

"So my prediction is, if there's another four years of a Dem administration, they will legalize so many illegals that... the next election there won't be any swing states, and this will be a single-party country."

The assertions from Musk -- who is himself from South Africa -- are a common refrain on the political right, which alleges a conspiracy between Democrats and immigrants.

Musk is increasingly becoming a surrogate for Trump on the campaign trail, and is reportedly planning to make a number of stops in battleground states in the coming weeks.

Over the weekend, he unveiled a program promising to pay $47 to anyone who registers voters in Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin and Michigan.

The scheme is looking to copy successful referral programs the South Africa-born entrepreneur has used in the past with his Tesla electric cars.

In his nearly two-hour chat with Carlson, in which the two men chuckled repeatedly at each other's pronouncements, Musk said he had thrown his full backing behind fellow billionaire Trump.

"If he loses, it's going to be hard for you to pretend you never supported him," said Carlson.

"I'm like, all in, baby," replied Musk.

"How long do you think my prison sentence is gonna be?" he chortled, laughing at the idea that the tables would turn against him under a Democratic administration. "Will I see my children? I don't know."



German Police Say 4 Women and a Boy Were Killed in the Christmas Market Attack

Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
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German Police Say 4 Women and a Boy Were Killed in the Christmas Market Attack

Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)
Tributes to the victims are seen outside the Johanniskirche (Johannes Church), a makeshift memorial near the site of a car-ramming attack on a Christmas market in Magdeburg, eastern Germany, on December 22, 2024. (AFP)

More details emerged Sunday about those killed when a man drove a car at speed through a Christmas market in Germany, while mourners continued to place flowers and other tributes at the site of the attack.

Police in Magdeburg, the central city where the attack took place on Friday evening, said that the victims were four women ranging in age from 45 to 75, as well as a 9-year-old boy they had spoken of a day earlier.

Authorities said 200 people were injured, including 41 in serious condition. They were being treated in multiple hospitals in Magdeburg, which is about 130 kilometers (80 miles) west of Berlin, and beyond.

Authorities have identified the suspect in the Magdeburg attack as a Saudi doctor who arrived in Germany in 2006 and had received permanent residency.

The suspect was on Saturday evening brought before a judge, who behind closed doors ordered that he be kept in custody pending a possible indictment.

Police haven’t publicly named the suspect, but several German news outlets identified him as Taleb A., withholding his last name in line with privacy laws, and reported that he was a specialist in psychiatry and psychotherapy.

Describing himself as a former Muslim, the suspect appears to have been an active user of the social media platform X, accusing German authorities of failing to do enough to combat what he referred to as the “Islamification of Europe.”

The horror triggered by yet another act of mass violence in Germany make it likely that migration will remain a key issue as German heads toward an early election on Feb. 23.

The far-right Alternative for Germany party had already been polling strongly amid a societal backlash against the large numbers of refugees and migrants who have arrived in Germany over the past decade.

Right-wing figures from across Europe have criticized German authorities for having allowed high levels of migration in the past and for what they see as security failures now.

Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who is known for a strong anti-migration position going back years, used the attack in Germany to lash out at the European Union’s migration policies.

At an annual press conference in Budapest on Saturday, Orban insisted that “there is no doubt that there is a link between the changed world in Western Europe, the migration that flows there, especially illegal migration and terrorist acts.”

Orban vowed to “fight back” against the EU migration policies “because Brussels wants Magdeburg to happen to Hungary, too.”