Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a podcast episode on Monday that he would be voting for Republicans in the upcoming November midterm elections after “overwhelmingly” voting for Democrats in the past.
“You know, the reality is that Twitter at this point, you know, has a very far-left bias, and I would classify myself as a moderate, neither a Republican nor Democrat,” Musk said on the “All-In” podcast published Monday during a tech conference in Miami.
“And in fact, I have voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically, overwhelmingly. Like, I’m not sure — I might never have voted for a Republican, just to be clear. Now this election I will.”
Later on in the podcast, Musk claimed that the Democratic Party was “overly controlled” by labor unions and said President Biden is “too much captured by the unions.”
“The issue here is that … the Democratic Party is overly, overly controlled by the unions and by the trial lawyers, particularly the class-action lawyers. And generally if you’ll see something that doesn’t, that is not in the interest of the people on the Democrat side, it’s going to come because of the unions,” Musk said.
“And then to be fair, on the Republican side, there’s this if you say like, ‘Where does something like not ideal happening?’ It’s because of corporate evil and religious zealotry. But that’s generally where the bad things will be coming from on the Republican side that are not representative of the people,” he added.
Business Insider was the first to report on Musk’s remarks.
Later in a tweet on Wednesday, Musk called Democrats “the party of division & hate.”
“In the past I voted Democrat, because they were (mostly) the kindness party. But they have become the party of division & hate, so I can no longer support them and will vote Republican. Now, watch their dirty tricks campaign against me unfold … ,” he said.
Several users replied to his tweet citing a statement he wrote on the platform in April where he said “For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” suggesting he was being hypocritical.
Several Republicans, however, lauded his decision.
“.@ElonMusksays he will be voting Republican for the first time in his life the next time he votes. Elon is not alone. It’s nearly impossible to stand by and vote for today’s radical Democrat Party. Welcome, Elon!” Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Co.) tweeted.
“Welcome, Elon. Glad to have you. ” Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) tweeted.
Following Musk’s deal to acquire Twitter late last month, conservatives cheered the sale, with many seeing him as a supporter of free speech.
The Tesla CEO, however, said last week that the acquisition was paused “pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users.”
This story was updated at 3:39 p.m.