He was their poster boy. He made their favorite car. He believed in climate change (still does). They oohed and ah'd over his rockets. He was better than Steve Jobs.
All that is memory-holed as they want us to believe that they never liked him and he was always bad. In fact, some seem to stay up nights spitting blood over him.
Well, Musk did not reciprocate, with political donations.
I think Musk was kind of naive at the time, thought it was OK if he just minded his own business, all that American dream nonsense. And pissed off after they started to target him, excluded him from electric car subsidies.
A lot of people think Musk went left because of his transgender daughter, at least that was Musk said, but I don't believe that was true. His daughter went to a very expensive private school he picked: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12470455/who-elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-jenna-wilson-communist.html
He can't really blame democrats, they don't control private schools. And private school teachers don't tell kids to have sex change, otherwise I think the school would have been sued.
The sex change surgery was also authorised by him, at least according to his transgender daughter: https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/elon-musk-transgender-daughter-vivian-wilson-interview-rcna163665
Though I don't think he liked the idea.
Musk in a recent interview saying he was culturally Christian: https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/2024/elon-musk-says-hes-a-cultural-christian--why-some-leading-thinkers-are-embracing-christianity/
But fell short of saying he was religious. And if he were I think he would have sent his daughter to a more religious school.
I think all that was his narrative, he was being tactful to resonate with the conservatives.
I think his daughter denounced him probably more to do with all the dishonesty, and dragging her name into politics, and of course siding with the side against transgender.
Not only Musk announced what her daughter did was a mistake, her being and existence were wrong. He also supported the political party to reduce her rights. Is that what a normal father would do? Is money really that important? For the richest man in the world?