Billionaire Elon Musk has endorsed Republican former President Donald Trump in the race for the White House, but employees at his collection of companies are largely donating to Trump’s Democratic rival Kamala Harris.

Workers at Tesla have contributed $42,824 to Harris’ presidential campaign versus $24,840 to Trump’s campaign, according to OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan nonprofit that tracks U.S. campaign contributions and lobbying data.

Employees at Musk’s rocket company SpaceX have donated $34,526 to Harris versus $7,652 to Trump. Employees at the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, have donated $13,213 to Harris versus less than $500 to Trump.

While the figures are relatively small for campaign fundraising, they indicate political leanings at odds with Musk’s own. The world’s richest man, Musk has boosted Trump on X and dismissed left-leaning ideas as a “woke-mind virus.”

Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment. He backed President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since then. Trump has said that if he wins the Nov. 5 election, he will appoint Musk to lead a government efficiency commission.

The OpenSecrets data includes donations from company employees and owners and those individuals’ immediate family members. Campaign finance laws prohibit companies themselves from donating to federal campaigns.

Many of Musk’s employees are based in California, a Democratic stronghold, said Ross Gerber, CEO of Gerber Kawasaki Wealth and Investment Management, which is a Tesla shareholder. Gerber is also an investor in X.

In July, Musk said he would move X and SpaceX headquarters to Texas from California because of a California gender-identity law he called the “last straw.” Gerber said such a move would mean “losing out on a lot of potential talent” in California.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

New Delhi:

Donald Trump’s much-awaited interview with Elon Musk on X today was hit by major tech issues even before it could start, forcing the billionaire entrepreneur to run the interview only for a small number of users as several others were unable to tune in.

The interview could provide Trump an opportunity to seize the limelight at a time his Democratic rival for the US presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris, has erased his lead in opinion polls and energised Democratic voters with a series of high-energy rallies. The Trump campaign has called it the “interview of the century”.

“This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!” 53-year-old Musk, who has an estimated net worth of $235 billion, posted in a preview of the interview on Sunday.

Trump’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk’s ownership of X after being suspended by the platform’s previous owners following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supporters.Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social social media platform, which was launched in February 2022.

Trump, 78, posted on X for the first time on Monday in more than a year ahead of the interview, sharing a campaign video in which he portrayed himself as the victim of persecution by forces seeking to “destroy” the United States.

Musk, one of the Democrats’ fiercest critics, endorsed Trump last month just minutes after the Republican narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a rally.