Donald Trump's return to the White House is a victory also for one of his most visible supporters: Elon Musk.
Even before the election results were clear, the billionaire had asked Trump for a favor, writes The New York Times : to get some of his closest associates at the space company Space X top positions within Trump's government.
According to two of the newspaper's sources, Musk wants, among other things, to get people into the defense department.
Cut billions
The request gives a hint about the benefits that the Tesla and X CEO can expect in return for his support for Trump.
Musk has spent equivalent to almost 1.3 billion kronor on Trump's presidential campaign and, in addition, almost continuously pushed out Trump's message on X - at the same time as he campaigned for Trump in the swing state of Pennsylvania.
Trump has already promised to make Musk the head of a commission that will increase the efficiency of public spending. Musk himself has talked about cuts of at least 20,000 billion kronor in the federal budget, according to The New York Times.
Less scrutiny
Musk has a fortune of equivalent to over 3,000 billion kronor. The companies he controls are already closely intertwined with American authorities and earn large sums of money on rockets, satellites, and space-based communication services.
Several of the companies are subject to various investigations, including regarding the safety of Tesla cars and the environmental impact of Space X rockets. Under Trump's leadership, the companies can expect significantly less scrutiny from the Justice Department, according to analysts.
Musk has also already earned billions from his connection to Trump. After Wednesday's election victory, Tesla's stock price surged over 12 percent, according to BBC.
Born on June 28, 1971, in South Africa. Moved to his mother's home country of Canada at the age of 18 to study. Musk then switched to the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in economics and physics.
In 1995, he moved to California and began his entrepreneurial journey. The first company, which was started with his brother Kimbal, was bought by Compaq for over 300 million dollars in 1999. The same year, Musk was involved in starting what would later become PayPal. The service was sold to eBay at the end of 2002 for 1.5 billion dollars.
Thereafter, Musk was involved in the start-up phase of both Space X and Tesla. With the successes from his entrepreneurial journey, Musk is counted as one of the world's richest people - depending on the economic situation and market fluctuations often as the single richest.
His personal opinions have taken an increasingly large place among the posts on X, and Musk has been criticized for being both transphobic and anti-Semitic, as well as for spreading conspiracy theories and right-wing extremist propaganda.
In September, he backed Donald Trump ahead of the US presidential election.
