Elon Musk’s Diplomacy: Woo Proper-Wing World Leaders. Then Profit.

Minutes after it grew to become clear that Javier Milei had been elected president of South America’s second-largest nation in November, Elon Musk posted on X: “Prosperity is forward for Argentina.”

Since then, Mr. Musk has continued to make use of X, the social community he owns, to spice up Mr. Milei. The billionaire has shared movies of the Argentine president attacking “social justice” together with his 182 million followers. One doctored picture, which implied that watching a speech by Mr. Milei was higher than having intercourse, is amongst Mr. Musk’s most considered posts ever.

Mr. Musk has helped flip the pugnacious libertarian into one of many new faces of the trendy proper. However offline, he has used the connection to press for advantages to his different companies, the electrical carmaker Tesla and the rocket firm SpaceX.

“Elon Musk referred to as me,” Mr. Milei mentioned in a tv interview weeks after taking workplace. “He’s extraordinarily within the lithium.”

Mr. Musk has declared lithium — the silvery-white ingredient that’s the major element in Tesla’s automobile batteries — “the brand new oil.” Tesla has lengthy purchased lithium from Argentina, which has the world’s second-largest reserves. Now Mr. Milei is pushing for main advantages for worldwide lithium miners, which might probably give Tesla a extra secure — and doubtlessly cheaper — move of one among its most important sources.

Mr. Milei is a part of a sample by Mr. Musk of fostering relationships with a constellation of right-wing heads of state, with clear beneficiaries: his firms and himself.

Mr. Musk, 52, has repeatedly used one piece of his enterprise empire — X, previously often called Twitter — to vocally assist politicians like Mr. Milei, Jair Bolsonaro of Brazil and Narendra Modi of India. On the platform, Mr. Musk has backed their views on gender, feted their opposition to socialism and aggressively confronted their enemies. Mr. Musk even personally intervened in X’s content material insurance policies in ways in which appeared to assist Mr. Bolsonaro, two former X workers mentioned.

Mr. Musk, in flip, has pushed for and gained company benefits for his most profitable companies, Tesla and SpaceX, based on an examination by The New York Instances. In India, he secured decrease import tariffs for Tesla’s autos. In Brazil, he opened a significant new marketplace for Starlink, SpaceX’s satellite tv for pc web service. In Argentina, he solidified entry to the mineral most vital to Tesla’s batteries.

Mr. Musk’s endorsement has given many nationalist and right-wing heads of state extra worldwide cachet, which they’ve eagerly promoted as a validation of their insurance policies and recognition. Final month, as India started holding an election, Mr. Modi ready to host Mr. Musk in New Delhi, calling the billionaire’s go to a testomony to his management.

“Persons are coming, and they’re trusting me,” the Indian prime minister mentioned in a televised interview earlier than Mr. Musk postponed his journey.

Mr. Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and X didn’t reply to requests for remark.

No different American megabillionaire businessperson has so publicly fostered ideological relationships with world leaders to advance private politics and companies. Invoice Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder turned philanthropist, engaged in political diplomacy largely after stepping again from company life. Different chief executives usually keep quiet about conferences with politicians.

Mr. Musk’s politics have lengthy been guided by his companies, mentioned 5 former Tesla and SpaceX executives who labored intently with him and weren’t approved to talk publicly. Within the 2010s, he constructed an alliance with President Barack Obama as Tesla and SpaceX welcomed federal help and contracts. He stays near some mainstream leaders, notably President Emmanuel Macron of France.

However as populism and nationalism unfold, Mr. Musk courted Xi Jinping in China and supported Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel, Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Italy’s Giorgia Meloni. He started criticizing the “woke thoughts virus” and what he has declared the failings of the left, which he says have led to points equivalent to unlawful immigration and declining birthrates.

“I assume if you happen to contemplate combating the woke thoughts virus, which I contemplate to be a civilizational menace, to be political, then sure,” Mr. Musk mentioned in a podcast in November when requested if he was changing into extra political. “Woke thoughts virus is communism rebranded.”

INDIA

A Lengthy Sport

In September 2015, Mr. Musk welcomed Mr. Modi to Tesla’s manufacturing facility in Fremont, Calif. Mr. Modi, a Hindu nationalist politician, had been elected India’s prime minister a 12 months earlier when his Bharatiya Janata Occasion swept to energy, and was visiting the USA to satisfy enterprise leaders.

Standing below Indian and U.S. flags on the manufacturing facility, Mr. Musk and Mr. Modi posed for pictures close to a gleaming purple Mannequin S automobile. They mentioned how “photo voltaic panels and battery packs” might energy rural areas in India with out electrical strains, Mr. Musk mentioned on the time.

“I understood his imaginative and prescient,” Mr. Modi later mentioned.

It was one of many first situations of Mr. Musk’s publicly assembly a nationalist chief. And it was the start of a protracted recreation between him and Mr. Modi, a relationship that took years to develop — and that began paying off for Mr. Musk after he purchased X.

India is a doubtlessly large marketplace for Tesla, which must broaden to new areas to develop. However the nation has nearly barred electrical autos constructed by international producers. In recent times, the tariff India imposes on imported electrical autos has risen as excessive as 100%.

Mr. Musk initially used conventional private diplomacy, assembly with Mr. Modi and ordering his workers at Tesla to get near officers. In 2017, Tesla despatched a letter to India’s authorities to kick-start talks on working within the nation. One other overture to Mr. Modi’s authorities in 2019 was rebuffed, three individuals with information of the corporate mentioned.

After Mr. Musk purchased Twitter in 2022, he had a brand new lever. The platform, renamed X, is extensively utilized in India — together with by Mr. Modi, who has practically 98 million followers — and is a significant discussion board of political dialogue.

Earlier than Mr. Musk owned the platform, Twitter tangled with Mr. Modi’s authorities. The corporate, which complies with requests to dam sure content material in India, had sued the federal government and challenged its energy to censor on-line materials.

Beneath Mr. Musk, X blocked posts final 12 months that linked to a BBC documentary inspecting Mr. Modi’s function within the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, the place he was the chief minister on the time. Twitter’s lawsuit in opposition to the Indian authorities was dismissed in July.

In a dialogue final 12 months with Twitter workers, Mr. Musk intimated that he was personally shut with Mr. Modi. He mentioned he might simply name the prime minister to deal with a content material situation, two former workers mentioned. It’s unclear if any dialog happened.

Mr. Musk met Mr. Modi in particular person once more final June when the prime minister visited New York. He referred to as himself a “fan of Modi” and mentioned Mr. Modi was “pushing us to make vital funding in India, which is one thing that we intend to do.”

By then, Tesla workers have been once more speaking with Mr. Modi’s advisers a few discount in tariffs and investing in India, two individuals aware of the conversations mentioned. Rohan Patel, who was Tesla’s vp of public coverage and enterprise growth, traveled to India a number of occasions, and Piyush Goyal, India’s commerce minister, visited the Fremont manufacturing facility in November.

In January, Mr. Musk posted on X that India ought to obtain a everlasting seat on the United Nations Safety Council, which might enhance India’s worldwide standing. “India not having a everlasting seat on the Safety Council, regardless of being essentially the most populous nation on Earth, is absurd,” he wrote.

The timing means that Mr. Modi seen. Two months later, India introduced it was decreasing some import duties for electrical carmakers that dedicated a minimum of $500 million to provide autos within the nation. The coverage dropped tariffs to fifteen % of a automobile’s value from 100%, particularly for electrical autos that retail for greater than $35,000.

The outline match Tesla to a T. Its Mannequin 3 vehicles ship at $38,990. BYD, the fast-growing Chinese language electrical automobile maker, is barred from investing in India on nationwide safety grounds.

Final month, Tesla scouted potential manufacturing facility websites in three Indian states, three individuals aware of the method mentioned. Mr. Musk had additionally mentioned he would go to Mr. Modi in New Delhi in the course of the nation’s multiweek normal election, earlier than delaying the journey, citing obligations with Tesla.

Mr. Musk promised to not keep away for lengthy. “I do very a lot stay up for visiting later this 12 months,” he wrote on X.

BRAZIL

‘True Legend of Freedom’

By 2021, Mr. Musk was using an identical courtship to deliver his Starlink satellite tv for pc web service to Brazil, which was then led by Mr. Bolsonaro, the right-wing populist president elected three years earlier. On the time, Starlink was in its infancy, with fewer than 150,000 customers throughout 25 international locations.

In October 2021, Fábio Faria, Brazil’s communications minister and an organizer of Mr. Bolsonaro’s re-election marketing campaign, despatched a letter to Mr. Musk, saying that “Starlink and Brazil can turn into nice companions,” based on correspondence obtained via the nation’s open information legal guidelines.

Weeks later, Mr. Faria visited Mr. Musk in Texas. After returning to Brazil, Mr. Faria pushed regulators to approve Starlink, at one level urging Brazil’s house company to remain out of any debate about SpaceX’s satellites over the nation, he later testified to Brazil’s Congress.

Brazil’s regulators accepted Starlink for operation in December 2021, seven months after the service first utilized. It was the quickest of 5 approvals that regulators granted to satellite tv for pc web suppliers.

Mr. Musk later lent a hand to Mr. Bolsonaro, who confronted an uphill battle in his 2022 re-election marketing campaign.

On Could 20 that 12 months, Mr. Musk made a shock journey to Brazil for a significant announcement alongside the president. Starlink was coming to the nation, and it could present web connectivity to 19,000 rural colleges, in addition to environmental monitoring of the Amazon, they mentioned at an occasion in a resort close to São Paulo. Mr. Bolsonaro gave Mr. Musk a medal and referred to as him a “true legend of freedom” for his bid that 12 months to purchase Twitter.

There was only one catch: The plan to attach colleges by no means materialized, mentioned Carlos Baigorri, Brazil’s chief telecommunications regulator, who helped approve Starlink’s entry into the nation. “I don’t actually suppose that it even existed,” he mentioned of the plan.

Brazilian officers mentioned that they had no file of Starlink’s connecting Brazilian colleges without cost or conducting environmental monitoring.

Mr. Musk and Mr. Bolsonaro benefited anyway. Mr. Musk had entrenched SpaceX in a essential market, the place Starlink now has 150,000 lively accounts, based on Brazil’s telecommunications regulator. Mr. Bolsonaro’s marketing campaign received to advertise the president’s enterprise acumen and solid him as a defender of the Amazon earlier than an election.

Mr. Musk’s favor didn’t stop Mr. Bolsonaro from shedding the presidency to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, Brazil’s leftist former president, in October 2022. However inside weeks, Mr. Musk, who had simply accomplished his deal for Twitter, tried serving to Mr. Bolsonaro once more.

Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters had began pushing accusations on Twitter that Brazilian judges had tilted the election by ordering social networks to take away right-wing posts and accounts. As they camped outdoors army bases demanding the election be overturned, Mr. Musk fed their suspicions by suggesting that Twitter’s former bosses had contributed to Mr. Bolsonaro’s defeat.

“It’s potential that Twitter personnel gave choice to left wing candidates,” he posted in December 2022, with out citing any proof. He later wrote that the corporate “could have individuals on the Brazil staff which can be strongly politically biased.”

Mr. Musk received concerned in deciding which posts about Brazil’s election outcomes ought to keep up or be taken down, two former Twitter workers mentioned. Even after Mr. Musk was briefed concerning the threat of violence in Brazil that winter, he ordered workers to cease implementing Twitter’s election guidelines within the nation, together with a coverage forbidding customers to unfold deceptive claims about election outcomes, they mentioned. He informed them to take away solely posts that straight incited violence or have been topic to a courtroom order.

In January 2023, hundreds of Mr. Bolsonaro’s supporters stormed Brazil’s Congress, Supreme Court docket and presidential places of work, below the false perception that the election had been stolen.

Mr. Musk has since used X to assault one among Mr. Bolsonaro’s major political opponents, Alexandre de Moraes, a Brazilian Supreme Court docket justice who has overseen investigations into the previous president and his supporters. X has blocked greater than 100 accounts on orders from Justice Moraes, who has mentioned a lot of them threatened Brazil’s democracy.

“This decide has overtly and repeatedly betrayed the structure and folks of Brazil,” Mr. Musk posted on X in April. “He ought to resign or be impeached.”

At a rally referred to as by Mr. Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro final month, his supporters held indicators thanking Mr. Musk.

When Mr. Bolsonaro addressed the gang, he hailed the billionaire as “the person who actually preserves true freedom for us all.”

ARGENTINA

A Assembly of the Minds

In 2022, one among Tesla’s lithium suppliers introduced a $1.1 billion funding to broaden in Argentina. Since then, Mr. Musk has taken a eager curiosity in Argentine politics — and significantly Mr. Milei — resulting in some of the pronounced bromances amongst Mr. Musk’s political relationships.

Mr. Milei “could be fairly a change,” Mr. Musk wrote on X in September in response to a publish from the previous Fox Information host Tucker Carlson, who had referred to as the then-candidate “Argentina’s subsequent president.”

Mr. Milei, a libertarian economist and TV pundit, campaigned on getting the federal government out of the economic system and tying Argentina extra intently to the USA. Like Mr. Musk, he continuously insults critics, has an intense social media behavior and is deeply anxious concerning the menace from “woke” tradition.

Days earlier than Mr. Milei’s inauguration in December, they spoke straight for the primary time, and Mr. Musk requested about Argentina’s lithium. Within the months since, Mr. Milei has been pushing laws that may make extracting Argentina’s lithium way more engaging to international buyers.

His sweeping invoice, which might grant him broad emergency powers over Argentina’s economic system and vitality for the subsequent 12 months, features a main profit for Tesla: vital incentives for international buyers in massive tasks, significantly in mining.

Such firms would obtain substantial tax cuts, customs exemptions and foreign-exchange advantages, in addition to tax and regulatory certainty for the subsequent 30 years. Tesla’s lithium provider is prone to qualify. If that’s the case, Mr. Milei’s plan would give Tesla uncommon stability and predictability in its entry to lithium in Argentina till a minimum of 2054.

The proposal handed Argentina’s decrease chamber of Congress on April 30.

Mr. Musk has already seen different dividends from Mr. Milei. In one among his first acts as president, Mr. Milei handed an government order with 366 provisions. When summarizing the highlights of the order in a televised handle, Mr. Milei talked about only one company model by title: Starlink.

SpaceX had pushed for Starlink’s approval in Argentina since 2022, however confronted a bureaucratic jam. Mr. Milei rapidly minimize rules on satellite tv for pc web, and Starlink started working within the nation in March.

Mr. Milei, in flip, has benefited: Mr. Musk has turn into his most influential on-line promoter. In January, Mr. Musk shared movies of Mr. Milei’s speech on the World Financial Discussion board, by which the chief claimed communism and social justice have been the principle threats to the West.

The posts set off a frenzy of reward for the Argentine throughout right-wing corners of the web, together with from Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who met with Mr. Milei in February on the Conservative Political Motion Convention outdoors Washington. Mr. Milei hugged Mr. Trump and informed him he was rooting for him.

Final month, Mr. Milei traveled to Austin, Texas, to go to Mr. Musk at Tesla’s manufacturing facility there. The 2 males agreed to “open markets and defend the concepts of freedom,” based on a press release from Mr. Milei’s workplace. The assertion didn’t point out lithium.

Later, Gerardo Werthein, Argentina’s ambassador to the USA, informed the Argentine newspaper La Nación that the pair had certainly mentioned Argentina’s mineral reserves.

Mr. Musk “had an excellent view of all the things we have now,” Mr. Werthein mentioned, “particularly lithium.”

On Monday, Mr. Musk and Mr. Milei met once more, this time at a convention in Los Angeles. Mr. Milei referred to as the entrepreneur “my pal” in a speech by which he praised Mr. Musk’s effort to achieve Mars. Just a few hours later, Mr. Musk posted a photograph of the 2 males with their thumbs up.

“I like to recommend investing in Argentina,” he wrote.

Reporting was contributed by Jason Horowitz from Rome, Kate Conger from San Francisco, Sameer Yasir from New Delhi, Paulo Motoryn from Brasília, Lucía Cholakian Herrera from Buenos Aires and Ishaan Jhaveri from New York.