MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Pa.—At another solo stumping event in Pennsylvania for former President Donald Trump, billionaire Elon Musk told more than 1,000 attendees that reelecting Trump is “incredibly important.” He urged voters to register in the swing state before the deadline on Oct. 21.
On Oct. 17, Musk increased the reward per voter registration or referral from $47, which his political action committee (PAC) offers in all battleground states, to $100 in Pennsylvania only. To qualify for the payout, the voter must also sign a petition to endorse the First and Second Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.
Musk’s Friday town hall at the Greater Philadelphia Expo Center was the second of a series of events to support Trump. A Thursday University of Massachusetts and YouGov survey showed Vice President Kamala Harris with a one-point lead. Without winning the Keystone State, both candidates’ path to the White House will be more difficult.
Musk explained why he became politically active during this general election, “I think the election is a super big deal. It’s really the difference between freedom and opportunity or oppression and communism, essentially. That’s what we’re looking at.”
He encouraged Trump supporters to be “loud and proud” and put up lawn signs in blue areas in the Commonwealth, which is concentrated in and near Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
A common theme of Friday night’s discussion was Musk’s potential job in Trump’s administration to improve government efficiency. Trump has repeatedly said at rallies that he wants to cut down regulations to help business and economic growth.
Musk said he would “reduce a lot of government headcount” by giving the fired government workers a two-year severance so they could “figure out something else to do.”
He also liked an idea proposed by attendees—using artificial intelligence to track laws and regulations and government spending.
Many attendees admired the products and technology Musk’s Tesla and SpaceX companies have developed. On Oct. 13, SpaceX’s reusable Starship rocket—key to NASA’s plan to build a permanent base on the moon—successfully returned to the launchpad for the first time.
Jo-Ann Bonanno, an executive assistant, said she is “very intrigued with Musk. I think he’s brilliant and brings so much to society today with his innovation and his technology,” she told Epoch Times’ sister media NTD Television. “The fact that he’s aligned himself with Trump … is a great thing.”
Bonanno attended the Friday town hall. “He brings a whole lot of hope and opportunity for young people … People don’t have enough of things to look forward to, ways to make money, or new ways of doing business.”
Purav Barot, a 29-year-old working in tech sales, said he supports Trump because he’s “basically tired of the current environment, high inflation prices, and how everything has gotten expensive.” He said he votes based on policies and past achievements, not personalities.
“It’s one of the elections where every vote matters, every voice matters,” he shared with NTD.
During his first Pennsylvania town hall on Oct. 17 in Delaware County, Musk described the close race in the battleground state, “I think we see that this election will be decided in Pennsylvania by, it could be 10,000 votes, it could be 1,000 votes, it could be 10 votes. It could be some very tiny number, so every incremental person is a huge difference.”
He added on Oct. 18, “We are doomed if Trump doesn’t win.”
After the Friday event, Dana Medwid, who owns a construction company, told NTD that she is impressed by Musk’s “knowledge of politics, his genius, his brilliance, and everything that he speaks about with the future.”
“He also said something very important—how our country is going to be doomed, then the world is going to be doomed if something doesn’t change,” she said. “And I agree with him.”
Musk’s America PAC has contributed more than $75 million to Trump’s campaign between July and September. According to the PAC’s website, Musk has another town hall in Harrisburg on Saturday and a pending event in Pittsburgh.
The Commonwealth currently has 9 million registered voters, with 44 percent Democrats, 40 percent Republicans, and 16 percent independents.
Although registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans by 300,000, Republican registrations are picking up. Between 2020 and 2024, registered Republicans increased by 130,000, while Democrats decreased by 220,000.
In the past year, 5,000 more Republican voters registered than Democrats through Pennsylvania’s new fast-track registration process when people get a new or renewed driver’s license.
Another billionaire, Shark Tank investor Mark Cuban, is campaigning for Democrats.
He joined Harris in Wisconsin on Thursday and is scheduled to speak again at her rally in Arizona on Saturday. On Sunday, Cuban will campaign with the second gentleman, Douglas Emhoff, in Michigan.
In contrast to Musk’s argument that the country is doomed without Trump as the next president, Cuban’s tone was more about having fun and “picking on Donald Trump a little bit.” He said that Trump doesn’t understand how tariffs work, referring to Trump’s plan to impose over 60 percent tariffs on Chinese goods.
From The Epoch Times