In the world of technology, the biggest story of the year is Elon Musk’s rise to omnipresence with an unprecedented level of global power. In 2024, Musk managed to become the most influential person in the world.
He has the ear of the president-elect of the United States and the power over the agencies in charge of putting limits on his companies, which have also become essential for the digital infrastructure of many nations. The size of his pockets brings American lawmakers to their knees or cowers, and his tweets draw applause or anger from world leaders.
Since Donald Trump won the election, Tesla’s stock price has nearly doubled. Musk’s fortune, already the largest in the world at the beginning of 2024, has skyrocketed to $440 billion, according to Forbes magazine. The closest tycoon on the list, Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, has 200 billion.
Since then, Musk has had no qualms about showing his newly acquired power: he has intervened in the appointments of what will be the new United States Government in a few days. His boldest move came a few days ago. Arguing that it included too many concessions to the Democratic Party, Musk led the charge to scupper the bipartisan spending deal in the House of Representatives.
Trump and a group of Republican Party congressmen soon followed suit. The president-elect even upped the ante by asking Republican lawmakers to lift the debt limit restriction.
In the end, the Republicans did not give in to the demands of Musk and Trump, showing a limit to the power of the president-elect and a first chapter of the chaos that awaits Americans in 2025. The Democrats responded with barbs to the “President Elon Musk” and X (formerly Twitter) users filled the social network with images in which Musk was seen in the White House with Trump on a dog leash. Trump downplayed Musk’s power: “No, he’s not going to be president, I can assure you of that,” he said.
Stuck in the center of the political storm, it is difficult to remember how this whole mess came to be and how Musk has opened a path that seems to take him to the helm of American politics. Taking a look at the chronology of the year it is clear: Elon Musk was inescapable. His account on
January
- Judge rejects Musk’s pay package as Tesla CEO: $56 billion [unos 54.000 millones de euros]. Musk promises to move the company’s headquarters to Texas.
- Neuralink reports that for the first time it has successfully implanted a computer chip in a patient’s brain, allowing him move a computer cursor just by thinking.
- Tesla’s revenues are not good: the Cybertruck is not successful and the company does not achieve high sales margins with its other vehicles.
February
- Musk moves SpaceX headquarters to Texas.
- Tesla leaves $2,000 unpaid at a California bakery from which he had ordered mini cakes [unos 1.920 euros]. The news of the incident goes viral on X and Musk takes charge of the debt.
- Ukraine denounces that in the Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia there are soldiers using Starlink Internet access terminals manufactured by SpaceX. Musk denies selling out to Russia.
March
- Musk says he will not support any US presidential candidate. Trump and Musk meet at Mar-a-Lago.
- Musk denounces OpenAI, developer of ChatGPT, for having become a for-profit company. OpenAI calls the lawsuit “frivolous.” The company was founded by Musk himself together with Sam Altman, his current CEO.
- SpaceX carries out the third test flight of Starship, the largest and most powerful rocket ever built. The test is successful until the last stage, when the rocket burns up during its entry into the atmosphere.
- Former Twitter executives sue Musk for $128 million in unpaid damages [unos 123 millones de euros].
April
- Tesla records its biggest drop in sales since 2012.
- Various reports indicate that Trump and Musk call each other several times a month.
- The Australian head of Internet Safety orders the social network X to hide tweets with the video of a stabbing in a Sydney church worldwide. Musk resists the order but justice ratifies it.
- Australia’s prime minister says Musk is an “arrogant billionaire who believes himself above the law.”
- Tesla continues to cut the price of its electric vehicles in its fight against the Chinese giants in the sector, especially BYD.
- Musk travels to China by surprise.
May
- Starlink says it will cease activities in war-torn Sudan. According to aid agencies, the decision will plunge the country further into chaos. The company provides internet.
- The first Neuralink implant partially separates from the patient’s brain, making it difficult for the microcomputer to function.
- The first reports emerge that Trump is considering giving Musk a position in the White House if he wins the election.
- Musk raises $6 billion [unos 5.800 millones de euros] for xIA, the artificial intelligence company with which it will compete against OpenAI.
- Musk feuds with encrypted messaging app Signal.
- The Australian head of Internet Safety withdraws the lawsuit against X and Musk.
June
- Tesla shareholders vote to give Musk back his pay package.
- SpaceX successfully launches the next version of the Starship.
- Tesla announces a recall of most Cybertrucks sold. It is the fourth time this has happened.
July
- Trump narrowly escapes assassination. Musk publicly announces his full support for the Republican candidate.
- Some information maintains that Musk plans to give the Trump campaign $45 million each month [unos 43,2 millones de euros]. Musk denies this. In the end, he will give Trump around $243 million [unos 233 millones de euros].
- Justice dismisses a lawsuit against Musk for 500 million dollars [unos 480 millones de euros] for layoffs on Twitter.
- Musk attends a session of the US Congress as a guest of Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel.
August
- “Civil war is inevitable,” Musk tweets as violent racist riots break out in the United Kingdom. Musk calls Labor leader Keir Starmer “two-tier Keir” and shares hoaxes about clashes. Starmer is outraged and says Musk’s inflammatory comments are unjustified.
- Musk and Trump have a live public conversation through X.
- Neuralink announces that it has implanted a second computer chip in a patient’s brain.
- X alleges “massive boycott” in a lawsuit against advertisers who have withdrawn from the social network.
- Nicolás Maduro falls out with Musk and blocks access to the social network X in Venezuela for 10 days.
- Musk promotes X’s new image generator by spreading fake images of Kamala Harris.
- Brazil blocks access to the social network X after Musk’s refusal to abide by the country’s laws and delete tweets with false information.
- Starlink says it will not block access to social network X from Brazil. In response, a court freezes the assets of Starlink, which ends up surrendering.
September
- Passengers of SpaceX’s Polaris Dawn spacecraft complete the first privately funded spacewalk.
- Musk calls Australian public employees responsible for regulating disinformation on the Internet “fascists.” From the Australian Government, they talk about Musk’s “madness.”
October
- “No one is trying to assassinate Biden/Kamala,” Musk writes on the social network X. Joe Biden’s White House criticizes the tweet.
- In the United Kingdom, Musk is left out of a technology summit for his publications about the country’s violent racial unrest. Musk writes in X that no one should go to the United Kingdom.
- Musk appears alongside Trump at a rally in the same city where the former president was almost assassinated. If Trump does not win, the billionaire says, it will be the “last election” in the United States.
- Musk shares conspiracy theories about the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene in the southeastern US and accuses the government of deliberately obstructing Starlink systems.
- Tesla does not meet car sales expectations in the third quarter.
- Brazil lifts the ban against X after the social network complies with Brazilian legislation.
- Musk announces that he will give away a million dollars [unos 960.000 euros] Pennsylvania registered voters to sign their petition. At first he says that the drawing for the new size checks was done at random, but his lawyers later acknowledge in court that it was not a random selection.
- The Philadelphia district attorney sues to block Musk’s proposal to give away money to voters who sign his petition. He doesn’t get it.
- Tesla is introducing what it says will be an autonomous taxi (no driver required) that will go on sale in three years. The news does not impress investors and Tesla’s valuation falls by $60 billion [unos 57.600 millones de euros].
- Musk conspires with the Trump campaign team to prevent leaks about JD Vance from being published on X.
- SpaceX relaunches the Starship rocket and helps it land with a pair of giant metal arms on its return to Earth.
November
- Donald Trump wins the election and Musk is elated. “It is dawn again in the United States,” he writes in X.
- Trump announces that Musk and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy will lead the “department of government efficiency,” an advisory body with which he plans to carry out major cuts in payrolls run by the US government (being advisory, it is not part of the federal government). nor does it need the approval of the Legislative Branch). Musk has promised to lay off tens of thousands of US government employees.
- Musk appears by surprise on a call between Trump and Volodymyr Zelensky, president of Ukraine.
- Tesla valuation reaches $1 billion [unos 960 millones de euros].
- Trump joins Musk to watch a test flight of the Starship rocket, developed by SpaceX.
- British deputies summon Elon Musk to testify about the responsibility of the social network X in the summer riots in the United Kingdom, but Musk does not attend.
December
- Trump appoints a billionaire who has captained SpaceX flights and is a close collaborator of Musk as director of NASA.
- Nigel Farage and Nick Candy, treasurer of the Reform UK party, meet Musk at Mar-a-Lago to talk about the “great things” they are going to do “together”, reviving the rumor that Musk could finance the populist party right-wing
- The Delaware judge who opposed Musk’s salary package in January rules against it again.
- Musk is campaigning fervently against the last-minute bill in which the US Congress approves new spending.
- “Only the AfD can save Germany,” Musk writes in X, explaining his support for the German far-right party Alternative for Germany. [AfD, por sus siglas en alemán] and unleashing a crisis in the European country, which will hold elections in February.
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