Politics
Elon Musk fades into the background
Elon Musk and Donald Trump were the main characters on the Internet and across Washington day after day. Then the world’s richest man started to fade away.
On Truth Social, where Trump is known for sharing his unfiltered thoughts, the president used to mention Musk every few days but now has not posted about him in more than a month. Trump’s fundraising operation has largely ceased sending emails that name-check the Tesla CEO. The billionaire’s name, once a staple of White House briefings, now hardly gets mentioned at all. Even members of Congress have essentially dropped him from their newsletters.
It’s a remarkable change for the man who was seemingly everywhere in the early days of the second Trump administration. Musk was in the Oval Office, in Cabinet meetings and on Air Force One. He was at inauguration, then in the House gallery for Trump’s first address to Congress, where Trump praised his hard work. He posed with the president and a row of Teslas on the White House lawn.
But Musk’s highly visible presence in Washington has ended, a Blue Light News analysis found. In Trump’s rapidly evolving second presidency, Musk’s monopoly on political discourse, news coverage and social media seems to have broken — driven in part by how Trump and Republicans have all but stopped talking about him.
“I miss him,” said Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.).
Musk’s shrinking presence could have political benefits for the GOP. Public polling has revealed him to be increasingly unpopular — far more so than Trump. Early last month, Republicans also lost a major Wisconsin judicial race where Musk had become both a major funder and a campaign issue. And in Washington, the cost-slashing efforts of Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency have continued, but have taken a political back seat to tariffs and the budget fight.
Republicans still speak favorably of Musk when asked about him. And they of course want his massive wealth, army of supporters, and online influence machine backing them in future elections. But while Kennedy argued that Musk stepping back won’t “make any difference one way or the other” for the midterms, others are starting to say the best way for the tech CEO to help the party might not be on the campaign trail ahead of 2026.
“Those polls on favorability basically tell you Elon’s doing a great job when he’s on the inside,” said David McIntosh, CEO of the conservative Club for Growth. “And hopefully he stays a long time to do that, but doesn’t take on this role of a campaign surrogate.”
That could complicate Democrats’ efforts to use Musk as a political foil. They’ve spent months honing strategies, including in the Wisconsin race, to tie the unpopular billionaire to their Republican opponents in battleground contests across the country.
But the Tesla CEO, who has an enormous following on his social media platform X, is unlikely to completely disappear — and Democrats say they can still use him as a boogeyman. Musk has become such a potent villain on the left that Democrats still expect to invoke him ahead of competitive elections this year in Virginia and New Jersey, as well as in next year’s midterms. And while Republicans are less inclined to put him at the forefront, they’re also not fully backing away from him.
“Ultimately, the issue here was never about Elon Musk, it was about Elon Musk-ism,” said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist. “He wrote their playbook, and it’s not about theoretical blame, it’s about real-world damage that he and Trump have caused that will be litigated all through the midterms.”
The Trump administration’s shift away from Musk has been dramatic online. In February and March, Trump posted about the Tesla CEO an average of roughly four times per week; since the beginning of April, the president hasn’t mentioned Musk once on Truth Social.
Asked about Trump’s declining mentions of Musk, and whether the tech CEO was a political liability, the White House didn’t mention Musk directly.
“The mission of DOGE — to cut waste, fraud, and abuse — will surely continue. DOGE employees who onboarded at their respective agencies will continue to work with President Trump’s cabinet to make our government more efficient,” Trump press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement.
It’s not just Trump. The president’s top advisers, as well as official White House accounts, have also largely stopped posting photos and content that mentions Musk.
Trump is also no longer using Musk’s name to bring in money. In February, his fundraising operation invoked Musk in emails to online supporters on a near-daily basis — a sign that the Tesla CEO was red meat for drumming up donations with the Trump-loving online base. (“I love Elon Musk! The media wants to drive us apart, and it’s not working. He’s great,” read part of one fundraising message, sent February 27.)
But mentions of Musk in fundraising appeals abruptly stopped in early March. Since then, Trump has sent only one fundraising message mentioning Musk — a May email touting a “Gulf of America” hat that the Tesla CEO tried on.
As Musk’s role in the White House has publicly faded, he’s generating less Google search traffic and getting mentioned in the news less. It’s a far cry from the attention he was receiving as a central political figure on the campaign trail and then as the head of the Trump administration’s efforts to slash the federal government.
Some Republicans have come to see Musk as politically toxic, which Democrats have been trying to leverage. First, there’s the polling: voters tend to view Musk far less favorably than Trump. Compared to a few months ago, the Tesla CEO’s approval rating has dropped across most groups, including independents and voters without college degrees.
Polling from Navigator Research earlier this spring found that DOGE’s work becomes less popular when tied to Musk, and polling from Data for Progress in late April found most voters wanted Musk out of government at the end of his 130-day period as a special employee that’s set to expire at the end of in May — or even sooner.
“The public supported the effort to end wasteful Washington spending, but they did not support the way that it was done,” said GOP pollster Frank Luntz. “His mission to cut the waste from Washington was certainly helpful, but the language he used wasn’t.”
Sen. Jim Justice (R-W.V.), a top Trump ally, said Musk is a “patriot” and that “he’s really trying to give up his time and do a lot of good.” But he acknowledged that the DOGE chief has ruffled feathers.
“We got too close to the fence. We mowed too far,” he said. “We just adjust. That’s the process that’s going on.”
In Wisconsin, Democrats put Musk at the forefront of the state Supreme Court election in April, aided by the fact that the Tesla CEO was a major donor backing the conservative candidate and showed up to campaign in the state. The race became a referendum on not just the broader Trump administration but on Musk specifically. And Judge Susan Crawford — the liberal candidate who ran an ad accusing Musk of trying to “buy” a seat on the court — won by 10 points in a state Trump had narrowly carried last November.
“He’s finished, done, gone. He polls terrible. People hate him,” said a GOP operative who was granted anonymity to speak frankly. “He’d go to Wisconsin thinking he can buy people’s votes, wear the cheese hat, act like a 9-year-old. … It doesn’t work. It’s offensive to people.”
In addition to potential political concerns, part of Musk’s shift out of the spotlight reflects the rapidly changing issue priorities over the early months of Trump’s presidency. In the first few months, DOGE’s cuts were top of mind. And while those efforts continue, they have also given up some of the spotlight to other Trump initiatives, including his market-rocking tariffs and controversial deportations.
So while Musk’s public profile has declined, that does not mean he lacks access or influence. Just last week, he was among the tech CEOs to join Trump in Saudi Arabia, shaking hands with the nation’s leaders and speaking at an investment forum.
And DOGE’s aggressive cost-cutting efforts, led by a staff Musk brought in, are expected to continue even after he formally leaves his role as a special government employee. Both Republicans and Democrats also widely expect the tech billionaire, who poured $290 million of his own money into the 2024 elections, to continue to be a major political player.
That’s one reason why Democrats say they aren’t fretting. Musk remains a foil for Democrats to highlight, but in the context of Trump and Republicans who have enabled him, said CJ Warnke, spokesperson for House Majority PAC, Democrats’ super PAC for congressional races. The issues that have replaced Musk as a dominating issue in news, such as potential Medicaid cuts and tariffs, are still good for Democrats to run on, he said.
In Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, several ads backing Crawford focused primarily or entirely on Musk, and for a while Democrats would sometimes mention Musk — but not Trump — on social media and in statements.
The Tesla CEO is still being regularly name-dropped in Democratic congressional candidates’ announcements from Pennsylvania to Illinois and California, in both safe and swing districts. And of the six Democrats running in New Jersey’s June 10 gubernatorial primary, four have named Musk in TV ads.
But recent ads tend to avoid making Musk the main villain. As ads blanket New Jersey in the final weeks of the race, the spots mentioning Musk usually put him side by side with Trump. A few give him glancing mentions or a quick flash on screen — not the main character.
AI safety groups aren’t buying OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s shifting stance on political spending in the midterms.
They’re wary of his concession that campaign cash from industry-aligned groups, like the OpenAI-aligned Leading the Future super PAC, may have inadvertently backfired. Instead, they’re pushing for stronger commitments to downsize the flood of money — and for candidates to reject any support from pro-AI groups.
“I won’t believe that they are actually changing their strategy, or their goals I should say, unless and until they do,” said Democratic New York assemblymember Alex Bores, who emerged as a key voice among AI regulation advocates after Leading the Future and other groups spent $8 million to tank his House campaign. He launched a $30 million effort to unify Democrats on AI policy last month.
Altman’s stark acknowledgement to Blue Light News follows a New York Times report that revealed OpenAI President Greg Brockman backed out of injecting more cash into Leading the Future earlier this summer, calling the super PAC’s efforts a “distraction” from the company’s mission. The pause is notable as Americans grow increasingly anxious about the risks the technology poses, and lawmakers scramble to figure out how to approach the emerging tech.
Still, some critics are not taking Altman’s concession or Brockman’s pullback as a sign of a fundamental change in the industry’s campaign strategy — at least not yet.
“What I read it as is they are no longer — or Greg Brockman in particular is not — going to fund Leading the Future,” said Bores. “Does that mean that the industry is not going to spend hundreds of millions of dollars trying to influence policy and get benefits on their way? No.”
Bores insisted that candidates should think twice before accepting financial support from Leading the Future specifically: “An elected official of either party taking money from Leading the Future should be viewed with incredible suspect.”
Guardrails Alliance political director Charlie Blaettler agreed, saying OpenAI leadership deciding to distance themselves from Leading the Future should be the final straw for Democrats backed by the group.
“If it’s too toxic for Sam Altman and Greg Brockman, why are Democrats still taking their money?” he said.
Leading the Future and rival super PAC network Public First — which advocates for AI regulation and is largely funded by OpenAI competitor Anthropic — together spent over $70 million through super PACs this cycle, according to FEC data.
Other pro-regulation advocates have jumped in with their own political spending, with groups like the Guardrails Alliance — a nonprofit and super PAC that launched in June — raising $5 million and spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to support Bores. Some of Guardrails Alliance’s money came from OpenAI employees pushing back against Leading the Future, which is funded in large part by OpenAI president Brockman, his wife Anna, early OpenAI investors Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz, and their venture capital firm a16z. They have contributed a combined $75 million to Leading the Future.
Leading the Future and a16z declined to comment.
Some Democrats who were backed in their primaries by Leading the Future — like Reps. Ritchie Torres and Joe Morelle of New York and Jared Moskowitz of Florida — declined to say whether they would disavow the Leading the Future cash that boosted them in their races.
“An outside AI PAC spent money in the 4th district during the primary, but they didn’t donate directly to my campaign,” Rep. Val Hoyle (D-Ore.), who was backed by a nearly $300,000 investment from Leading the Future, said in a statement to Blue Light News.
She did not address whether she would disavow the group and its spending: “I’ve been working with labor leaders and advocates to put workers first when it comes to AI. We need clear federal guardrails to protect workers, safeguard our planet, prevent utility rate spikes and give consumers a voice.”
Even if candidates decide to further distance themselves from the industry’s spending, some pro-guardrails advocates said the onus still lies with figures like Altman to put a stop to — or significantly decrease — the influx of money altogether.
“[Altman was] basically saying, ‘These are the rules of the game, and I can’t really change them, and it’s not in my job description,’” said Brendan Steinhauser, who leads AI safety group The Alliance for Secure AI Action. “Of course he’s saying that, but they could do a unilateral disarmament or encourage the other labs to stop giving, and maybe it’d be just like pacing the frontier — maybe people could pace political giving.”
Former Democratic Rep. Brad Carson, who co-founded Public First, said he would be open to engaging in talks with Leading the Future about pacing or scaling back the industry’s political spending — but only if so-called AI “accelerationists” are serious about backing off. He called out Andreessen and Horowitz who have emerged as the biggest known spenders in this year’s midterm elections and were early investors in OpenAI.
“As long as these accelerationists have a desire to spend tens and tens, if not hundreds of millions of dollars, there is probably a need for a Public First,” said Carson, who also leads the nonprofit group Americans for Responsible Innovation. “So even if Brockman drops out, Andreessen and Horowitz can just drop another 50 million if they felt like it, and I wouldn’t want to be disarmed against that.”
Brendan Bordelon contributed to this report.
Former President Barack Obama will campaign in Detroit with Michigan Democrats later this month, giving the party a high-profile boost ahead of the start of the state’s early voting period.
Obama is set to join Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed, gubernatorial nominee Jocelyn Benson and other candidates on Oct. 24, the state party announced Monday.
“It is my honor and privilege to announce that President @BarackObama is joining us on the trail in Detroit on Saturday, October 24,” El-Sayed wrote on social media. “Get. Ready.”
The event comes 10 days before Election Day, with Democrats defending an open Senate seat and the governor’s office.
El-Sayed faces Republican former Rep. Mike Rogers in the race to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters. Benson, Michigan’s secretary of state, faces Republican Rep. John James in the open governor’s race.
Since leaving the White House, Obama has remained one of the party’s most popular figures, both nationally and among the party grassroots. He has campaigned in past cycles, but he’s made few public stops on the trail this year.
He previously campaigned in Texas with Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico and gubernatorial nominee Gina Hinojosa, and appeared in a campaign ad with Iowa Senate nominee Josh Turek.
The former president is also set to headline a Washington-area fundraiser Wednesday for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, his first with the party’s Senate campaign arm this election cycle.
Ken Paxton is less than a month out from the conclusion of a D.C.-outsider campaign for a Texas U.S. Senate seat that he privately admitted is being run by Washington.
“I’ve never been in a race where I felt less control over the campaign and, like, what issues are going to matter because it’s all coming — you know — from D.C.,” Paxton said during a small fundraising event last month, according to an audio recording obtained by Blue Light News from a person in the room who does not support Paxton, and verified by another attendee.
“I don’t control message or what we’re doing.”
The lunch, hosted Sept. 24 in Washington by Chris Brinson and Susan Hirschmann of the D.C.-based lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, was attended by about a dozen people including Scott Kopple, VP of government relations at defense contractor BWXT.
“Texas is a big state, and some of these issues obviously resonate with real — I’ll call real people — you know, like back home,” Kopple, who did not respond to a request for comment, said to some chuckles in the room. “I know you need money to get the message out and stuff, but how does this stuff translate?”
Paxton replied saying: “I miss the days when I could go to, get around with all the people. But we have 32 million people, so let’s just say for the next 40 days I’m in front of 1,000 people a day — which I’m not — and that’s 40,000 people. Ten to 10.4 million people are gonna vote.”
“But then it comes down to your messaging,” he continued, “which in a federal race comes from other people a lot of times, which you don’t control.”
One attendee granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting said that Paxton never explicitly said he was referring to Trump’s team controlling his campaign, but “everybody knew what he was talking about.” The person said Paxton’s comments came amid a broader discussion about the national political environment.
“I don’t have ability to change anything,” Paxton went on. “So I have to live with whatever I’ve got. So it is a challenge.”
Paxton campaign adviser Nick Maddux said, “Campaigns don’t coordinate with super PACS and that’s obviously what AG Paxton was referring to,” in a statement to Blue Light News. “AG Paxton is thankful for the support and knows how important Texas is to keeping the majority which is why he’s on the ground every day talking to Texas, raising money, and taking his message directly to the people including with his statewide television buy that started over this past weekend.”
Neither Hirschmann nor Brinson responded to a request for comment.
In an audio recording of the same meeting obtained by The New York Times, Paxton told attendees the midterm convention hosted by Trump in Texas last month “dropped our numbers. Everybody’s numbers dropped. Right now, yeah, not good.” Maddux described the article as “manipulated nonsense.” Playbook hasn’t heard the contents of the rest of the hourlong meeting.
The most recent New York Times/Siena poll has Paxton running 6 points behind Democratic challenger James Talarico.
The private comments follow a bitter primary campaign waged against Republican incumbent John Cornyn, whom Paxton framed as a “Washington insider” and “RINO” while publicly aligning himself with Trump.
“His money is coming from the D.C. establishment,” Paxton said of Cornyn while campaigning in Texas before the primary, the AP reported. “That’s how they always try to convince us from Washington with their money that we should select their person. Well, I’m not their person and I’m never going to be their person.”
Paxton maintains a cash advantage heading into November and announced a $20 million ad buy last month. The Senate Leadership Fund, a top GOP super political action committee closely aligned with Senate Majority Leader John Thune, pledged millions to back Paxton earlier in September.
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