\n<\/p>\n
Minutes after it became clear that Javier Milei had been elected president<\/a> of South America\u2019s second-largest nation in November, Elon Musk posted on X<\/a>: \u201cProsperity is ahead for Argentina.\u201d<\/p>\n Since then, Mr. Musk has continued to use X, the social network he owns, to boost Mr. Milei. The billionaire has shared videos of the Argentine president attacking \u201csocial justice\u201d with his 182 million followers. One doctored image, which implied that watching a speech by Mr. Milei was better than having sex, is among Mr. Musk\u2019s most viewed posts ever.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk has helped turn the pugnacious libertarian<\/a> into one of the new faces of the modern right. But offline, he has used the relationship to press for benefits to his other businesses, the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX.<\/p>\n \u201cElon Musk called me,\u201d Mr. Milei said in a television interview<\/a> weeks after taking office. \u201cHe is extremely interested in the lithium.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Musk has declared lithium \u2014 the silvery-white element that is the main component in Tesla\u2019s car batteries \u2014 \u201cthe new oil.\u201d Tesla has long bought lithium from Argentina, which has the world\u2019s second-largest reserves<\/a>. Now Mr. Milei is pushing for major benefits for international lithium miners, which would likely give Tesla a more stable \u2014 and potentially cheaper \u2014 flow of one of its most critical resources.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei is part of a pattern by Mr. Musk of fostering relationships with a constellation of right-wing heads of state, with clear beneficiaries: his companies and himself.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk, 52, has repeatedly used one piece of his business empire \u2014 X, formerly known as Twitter \u2014 to vocally support 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<\/a>. Mr. Musk even personally intervened in X\u2019s content policies in ways that appeared to aid Mr. Bolsonaro, two former X employees said.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk, in turn, has pushed for and won corporate advantages for his most lucrative businesses, Tesla and SpaceX, according to an examination by The New York Times. In India, he secured lower import tariffs for Tesla\u2019s vehicles. In Brazil, he opened a major new market for Starlink, SpaceX\u2019s satellite internet<\/a> service. In Argentina, he solidified access to the mineral most crucial to Tesla\u2019s batteries.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk\u2019s endorsement has given many nationalist and right-wing heads of state more international cachet, which they have eagerly promoted as a validation of their policies and popularity. Last month, as India began holding an election, Mr. Modi prepared to host Mr. Musk in New Delhi, calling the billionaire\u2019s visit a testament to his leadership.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cPeople are coming, and they are trusting me,\u201d the Indian prime minister said in a televised interview before Mr. Musk postponed his trip.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk, Tesla, SpaceX and X did not respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n No other American megabillionaire businessperson has so publicly fostered ideological relationships with world leaders to advance personal politics and businesses. Bill Gates, Microsoft\u2019s co-founder turned philanthropist, engaged in political diplomacy largely after stepping back from corporate life. Other chief executives typically stay quiet about meetings with politicians.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk\u2019s politics have long been guided by his businesses, said five former Tesla and SpaceX executives who worked closely with him and were not authorized to speak publicly. In the 2010s, he built an alliance with President Barack Obama as Tesla and SpaceX welcomed federal assistance and contracts. He remains close to some mainstream leaders, notably President Emmanuel Macron of France.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n But as populism and nationalism spread, Mr. Musk courted Xi Jinping<\/a> in China and supported Benjamin Netanyahu<\/a> in Israel, Turkey\u2019s Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Italy\u2019s Giorgia Meloni. He began criticizing the \u201cwoke mind virus\u201d and what he has declared the failings of the left, which he says have led to issues such as illegal immigration and declining birthrates.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess if you consider fighting the woke mind virus, which I consider to be a civilizational threat, to be political, then yes,\u201d Mr. Musk said in a podcast in November<\/a> when asked if he was becoming more political. \u201cWoke mind virus is communism rebranded.\u201d<\/p>\n INDIA<\/p>\n In September 2015, Mr. Musk welcomed Mr. Modi to Tesla\u2019s factory in Fremont, Calif. Mr. Modi, a Hindu nationalist politician, had been elected India\u2019s prime minister a year earlier when his Bharatiya Janata Party swept to power, and was visiting the United States to meet business leaders.<\/p>\n Standing under Indian and U.S. flags at the factory, Mr. Musk and Mr. Modi posed for photographs<\/a> near a gleaming red Model S car. They discussed how \u201csolar panels and battery packs\u201d could power rural regions in India without electrical lines, Mr. Musk said at the time.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cI understood his vision,\u201d Mr. Modi later said.<\/p>\n It was one of the first instances of Mr. Musk\u2019s publicly meeting a nationalist leader. And it was the beginning of a long game between him and Mr. Modi, a relationship that took years to develop \u2014 and that started paying off for Mr. Musk after he bought X.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n India is a potentially massive market for Tesla, which needs to expand to new regions to grow. But the country has virtually barred electric vehicles built by foreign manufacturers. In recent years, the tariff India imposes on imported electric vehicles has risen as high as 100 percent.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk initially used traditional personal diplomacy, meeting with Mr. Modi and ordering his staff at Tesla to get close to officials. In 2017, Tesla sent a letter to India\u2019s government to kick-start talks on operating in the country. Another overture to Mr. Modi\u2019s government in 2019 was rebuffed, three people with knowledge of the company said.<\/p>\n After Mr. Musk bought Twitter<\/a> in 2022, he had a new lever. The platform, renamed X, is widely used in India \u2014 including by Mr. Modi, who has nearly 98 million followers \u2014 and is a major forum of political discussion.<\/p>\n Before Mr. Musk owned the platform, Twitter tangled with Mr. Modi\u2019s government. The company, which complies<\/a> with requests to block certain content in India, had sued the government<\/a> and challenged its power to censor online material.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Under Mr. Musk, X blocked posts last year that linked to a BBC documentary<\/a> examining Mr. Modi\u2019s role in the 2002 Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat, where he was the chief minister at the time. Twitter\u2019s lawsuit against the Indian government was dismissed in July.<\/p>\n In a discussion last year with Twitter employees, Mr. Musk intimated that he was personally close with Mr. Modi. He said he could easily call the prime minister to take care of a content issue, two former employees said. It\u2019s unclear if any conversation took place.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk met Mr. Modi in person again last June when the prime minister visited New York. He called himself a \u201cfan of Modi\u201d and said Mr. Modi was \u201cpushing us to make significant investment in India, which is something that we intend to do.\u201d<\/p>\n By then, Tesla employees were again talking with Mr. Modi\u2019s advisers about a reduction in tariffs and investing in India, two people familiar with the conversations said. Rohan Patel, who was Tesla\u2019s vice president of public policy and business development, traveled to India several times, and Piyush Goyal, India\u2019s commerce minister, visited<\/a> the Fremont factory in November.<\/p>\n In January, Mr. Musk posted on X<\/a> that India should receive a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council, which would boost India\u2019s international standing. \u201cIndia not having a permanent seat on the Security Council, despite being the most populous country on Earth, is absurd,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The timing suggests that Mr. Modi noticed. Two months later, India announced it was reducing some import duties for electric carmakers that committed at least $500 million to produce vehicles in the country. The policy dropped tariffs to 15 percent of a car\u2019s price from 100 percent, specifically for electric vehicles that retail for more than $35,000.<\/p>\n The description fit Tesla to a T. Its Model 3 cars ship at $38,990. BYD,<\/a> the fast-growing Chinese electric vehicle maker, is barred from investing in India on national security grounds.<\/p>\n Last month, Tesla scouted potential factory sites in three Indian states, three people familiar with the process said. Mr. Musk had also said he would visit Mr. Modi in New Delhi during the country\u2019s multiweek general election, before delaying the trip, citing obligations with Tesla.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk promised not to stay away for long. \u201cI do very much look forward to visiting later this year,\u201d he wrote on X.<\/p>\n BRAZIL<\/p>\n By 2021, Mr. Musk was employing a similar courtship to bring his Starlink satellite internet service to Brazil, which was then led by Mr. Bolsonaro, the right-wing populist president elected three years earlier. At the time, Starlink was in its infancy, with fewer than 150,000 users<\/a> across 25 countries.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In October 2021, F\u00e1bio Faria, Brazil\u2019s communications minister and an organizer of Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s re-election campaign, sent a letter to Mr. Musk, saying that \u201cStarlink and Brazil can become great partners,\u201d according to correspondence obtained through the country\u2019s open records laws.<\/p>\n Weeks later, Mr. Faria visited Mr. Musk in Texas. After returning to Brazil, Mr. Faria pushed regulators to approve Starlink, at one point urging Brazil\u2019s space agency to stay out of any debate about SpaceX\u2019s satellites over the country, he later testified to Brazil’s Congress.<\/p>\n Brazil\u2019s regulators approved Starlink for operation in December 2021, seven months after the service first applied. It was the fastest of five approvals that regulators granted to satellite internet providers.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk later lent a hand to Mr. Bolsonaro, who faced an uphill battle in his 2022 re-election campaign.<\/p>\n On May 20 that year, Mr. Musk made a surprise trip to Brazil for a major announcement alongside the president. Starlink was coming to the country, and it would provide internet connectivity to 19,000 rural schools, as well as environmental monitoring of the Amazon, they said at an event in a resort near S\u00e3o Paulo. Mr. Bolsonaro gave Mr. Musk a medal<\/a> and called him<\/a> a \u201ctrue legend of freedom\u201d for his bid that year to buy Twitter.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n There was just one catch: The plan to connect schools never materialized, said Carlos Baigorri, Brazil\u2019s chief telecommunications regulator, who helped approve Starlink\u2019s entry into the country. \u201cI don\u2019t really think that it even existed,\u201d he said of the plan.<\/p>\n Brazilian officials said they had no record of Starlink\u2019s connecting Brazilian schools for free or conducting environmental monitoring.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk and Mr. Bolsonaro benefited anyway. Mr. Musk had entrenched SpaceX in a critical market<\/a>, where Starlink now has 150,000 active accounts, according to Brazil\u2019s telecommunications regulator. Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s campaign got to promote the president\u2019s business acumen and cast him as a defender of the Amazon<\/a> before an election.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk\u2019s favor did not prevent Mr. Bolsonaro from losing the presidency<\/a> to Luiz In\u00e1cio Lula da Silva, Brazil\u2019s leftist former president, in October 2022. But within weeks, Mr. Musk, who had just completed his deal for Twitter, tried helping Mr. Bolsonaro again.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s supporters had started pushing accusations on Twitter that Brazilian judges had tilted the election by ordering social networks<\/a> to remove right-wing posts and accounts. As they camped outside military bases demanding the election be overturned<\/a>, Mr. Musk fed their suspicions by suggesting that Twitter\u2019s former bosses had contributed to Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s defeat.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s possible that Twitter personnel gave preference to left wing candidates,\u201d he posted<\/a> in December 2022, without citing any evidence. He later wrote<\/a> that the company \u201cmay have people on the Brazil team that are strongly politically biased.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Musk got involved in deciding which posts about Brazil\u2019s election results should stay up or be taken down, two former Twitter employees said. Even after Mr. Musk was briefed about the risk of violence in Brazil that winter, he ordered employees to stop enforcing Twitter\u2019s election rules in the country, including a policy<\/a> forbidding users to spread misleading claims about election results, they said. He told them to remove only posts that directly incited violence or were subject to a court order.<\/p>\n In January 2023, thousands of Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s supporters stormed<\/a> Brazil\u2019s Congress, Supreme Court and presidential offices, under the false belief that the election had been stolen. <\/p>\n Mr. Musk has since used X to attack<\/a> one of Mr. Bolsonaro\u2019s main political opponents, Alexandre de Moraes<\/a>, a Brazilian Supreme Court justice who has overseen investigations into the former president and his supporters. X has blocked more than 100 accounts<\/a> on orders from Justice Moraes, who has said many of them threatened Brazil\u2019s democracy.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n \u201cThis judge has brazenly and repeatedly betrayed the constitution and people of Brazil,\u201d Mr. Musk posted on X<\/a> in April. \u201cHe should resign or be impeached.\u201d<\/p>\n At a rally called by Mr. Bolsonaro in Rio de Janeiro last month, his supporters held signs thanking Mr. Musk.<\/p>\n When Mr. Bolsonaro addressed the crowd, he hailed the billionaire as \u201cthe man who really preserves true freedom for us all.\u201d<\/p>\n ARGENTINA<\/p>\n In 2022, one of Tesla\u2019s lithium suppliers<\/a> announced a $1.1 billion investment<\/a> to expand in Argentina. Since then, Mr. Musk has taken a keen interest in Argentine politics \u2014 and particularly Mr. Milei \u2014 leading to one of the most pronounced bromances among Mr. Musk\u2019s political relationships.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei \u201cwould be quite a change,\u201d Mr. Musk wrote on X<\/a> in September in response to a post from the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who had called the then-candidate \u201cArgentina\u2019s next president.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Milei, a libertarian economist and TV pundit, campaigned on getting the government out of the economy and tying Argentina more closely to the United States. Like Mr. Musk, he frequently insults critics, has an intense social media habit and is deeply worried about the threat from \u201cwoke\u201d culture.<\/p>\n Days before Mr. Milei\u2019s inauguration in December, they spoke directly for the first time, and Mr. Musk asked about Argentina\u2019s lithium. In the months since, Mr. Milei has been pushing legislation that would make extracting Argentina\u2019s lithium far more attractive to foreign investors.<\/p>\n His sweeping bill, which would grant him broad emergency powers over Argentina\u2019s economy and energy for the next year, includes a major benefit for Tesla: significant incentives for foreign investors in large projects, particularly in mining.<\/p>\n Such companies would receive substantial tax cuts, customs exemptions and foreign-exchange benefits, as well as tax and regulatory certainty for the next 30 years. Tesla\u2019s lithium supplier is likely to qualify. If so, Mr. Milei\u2019s plan would give Tesla unusual stability and predictability in its access to lithium in Argentina until at least 2054.<\/p>\n The proposal passed Argentina\u2019s lower chamber of Congress on April 30.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Mr. Musk has already seen other dividends from Mr. Milei. In one of his first acts as president, Mr. Milei passed an executive order with 366 provisions. When summarizing the highlights of the order in a televised address, Mr. Milei mentioned just one corporate brand by name: Starlink.<\/p>\n SpaceX had pushed for Starlink\u2019s approval in Argentina since 2022, but faced a bureaucratic jam. Mr. Milei quickly cut regulations on satellite internet, and Starlink began operating in the country in March.<\/p>\n Mr. Milei, in turn, has benefited: Mr. Musk has become his most influential online promoter. <\/em>In January, Mr. Musk shared videos of Mr. Milei\u2019s speech at the World Economic Forum, in which the leader claimed communism and social justice were the main threats to the West.<\/p>\n The posts set off a frenzy of praise for the Argentine across right-wing corners of the internet, including from Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, who met with Mr. Milei in February at the Conservative Political Action Conference outside Washington. Mr. Milei hugged Mr. Trump<\/a> and told him he was rooting for him.<\/p>\n Last month, Mr. Milei traveled to Austin, Texas, to visit Mr. Musk at Tesla\u2019s factory there. The two men agreed to \u201copen markets and defend the ideas of freedom,\u201d according to a statement from Mr. Milei\u2019s office. The statement did not mention lithium.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Later, Gerardo Werthein, Argentina\u2019s ambassador to the United States, told the Argentine newspaper La Naci\u00f3n<\/a> that the pair had indeed discussed Argentina\u2019s mineral reserves.<\/p>\n Mr. Musk \u201chad a very good view of everything we have,\u201d Mr. Werthein said, \u201cespecially lithium.\u201d<\/p>\n On Monday, Mr. Musk and Mr. Milei met again, this time at a conference in Los Angeles. Mr. Milei called the entrepreneur \u201cmy friend\u201d in a speech in which he praised Mr. Musk\u2019s effort to reach Mars<\/a>. A few hours later, Mr. Musk posted a photo of the two men with their thumbs up.<\/p>\n \u201cI recommend investing in Argentina,\u201d he wrote<\/a>.<\/p>\n Reporting was contributed by Jason Horowitz from Rome, Kate Conger from San Francisco, Sameer Yasir from New Delhi, Paulo Motoryn from Bras\u00edlia, Luc\u00eda Cholakian Herrera from Buenos Aires and Ishaan Jhaveri from New York.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\nA Long Game<\/h2>\n
\u2018True Legend of Freedom\u2019<\/h2>\n
A Meeting of the Minds<\/h2>\n