The reason for Trump’s meeting with Elon Musk has been revealed

The ex-president of the United States needed money

Donald Trump met with billionaire Elon Musk in Florida over the weekend as the former Republican president seeks a major cash injection for his re-election campaign, the New York Times reports.

According to the New York Times, Trump met with Musk – one of the richest men in the world – and a number of wealthy Republican donors on Sunday and hopes to soon have a one-on-one conversation with Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc and SpaceX and the owner-executive chairman of X , the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Neither Musk nor the Trump campaign have responded to requests for comment from Reuters news agency.

Trump, whose personal fortune has recently been hit by rulings against him in a civil fraud case in New York and a separate defamation trial, is seeking to attract additional major donors to his presidential campaign, the New York Times reports.

Elon Musk has not said whether he plans to support Trump financially, but the South African-born billionaire entrepreneur has suggested in social media posts that he is opposing incumbent President Joe Biden, who defeated Trump in 2020 and won a second term in November.

According to The Guardian, Elon Musk has long sought to position himself as a politically independent figure, but previously stated that he voted for Biden in 2020. However, since then he has criticized the Democratic president and clashed with his administration

In November, the White House called “disgusting” a tweet sent by Musk that it said showed uncaring anti-Semitism. In December, Musk’s mother accused President Biden of standing in the way of the billionaire’s plans to make the world a better place.

Last year, Musk said he would no longer vote for Biden, and – according to The New York Times – he has made it clear that defeating the president is a priority.

With a net worth estimated by Forbes magazine at about $200 billion, Musk has the resources to almost single-handedly offset the enormous financial advantage Biden and his supporters are expected to gain over Trump during the 2024 general election campaign.

Financial disclosures filed last month showed Trump’s cash had dropped to just over $30 million as he ran strong in the Republican primary, down from about $33 million a month earlier, his campaign said in a report to the Federal Election Commission. Commission (FEC).

Joe Biden, who faces a less competitive process for the Democratic nomination, said in a separate statement to the FEC that his campaign ended in January with about $56 million in cash, down from $46 million in December.