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As we pointed out last week, several of the big Republican donors, including Ken Griffin, Steve Schwarzman and Robert Mercer, are already on record backing Ron DeSantis in 2024. Now another one, Elon Musk, has joined the group. On Friday, Musk said that if DeSantis runs, he would support the Florida governor. He didn't say what "support" means, but if it means something like "will donate millions of dollars to a super PAC supporting him," that could be significant.
From the way Musk is managing his new toy, Twitter, many people are assuming that Musk is an ultra wingnut. That might not be entirely true. Musk said that he supported the Obama administration and he "reluctantly" voted for Joe Biden in 2020. This could mean he is a right-winger, just an anti-Trump right-winger. On the other hand, he reinstated Donald Trump on Twitter. Could it be that he is more of a libertarian than a Republican, and just opposes all rules on principle?
In any event, with so many billionaires already lined up for DeSantis—and probably some more waiting in the wings—the governor will not be hurting for funding if he decides to run. Trump still has his mailing list of small donors, but if DeSantis has many (or most) of the billionaire Republican donors on his side, he could well have more money in the primary than Trump. That could lead to a very expensive and exceedingly nasty primary. (V)