Elon Musk, who shelled out over $100 million and turned his social media platform X into an online megaphone to get out the vote for Donald Trump, has emerged as one of the presidential election’s biggest winners.

The globe’s richest man was the only Fortune 100 CEO to pick a side, endorsing Trump moments after the July assassination attempt at a Pennsylvania campaign rally.

In the final weeks of the campaign, Musk pulled out all the stops, hosting town halls in the battleground state of Pennsylvania and awarding swing-state voters $1 million checks.

Rubbing shoulders with other wealthy donors at Mar-a-Lago as Trump rode a red wave to achievement, Musk tweeted a photo of a SpaceX rocket launching: “The upcoming is gonna be fantastic.”

Will Musk’s election wager pay off?

Trump made obvious in his win talk that Musk will have an friend in the White House. “A star is born,” Trump said of the tech billionaire. 

That star power could hand Musk significant sway over government policy and the federal agencies that oversee his constellation of six companies from Tesla to SpaceX, which have been awarded $15.4 billion in federal government contracts over the history decade, according to Open Secrets.

It’s ordinary for presidents to tap business leaders for prominent roles in their administrations. But Musk’s reach could be unprecedented, said Dan Schnur, who teaches strategic political communications at the University of Southern California and the University of California, Berkeley.

“If Donald Trump were Willy Wonka, Elon Musk just won all five golden tickets,” Schnur said. “Trump not only respects him, not only does he revere him, but Trump feels like he owes him. Add that up and it’s challenging to imagine Musk writing a aspiration list that Trump won’t rubber stamp.”

Musk may have large role in Trump White House

Trump has pledged to provide Musk an official role in his administration cutting government spending, which he has referred to as the “Secretary of expense Cutting.” Musk has joked he will run a “Department of Government Efficiency” or DOGE, referring to the cryptocurrency he champions.

Musk tweeted he was enthusiastic to work with Trump on a percentage to slash government spending. He has boasted he could slash $2 trillion from the federal distribution but has not provided any specifics on how.

What’s more, Musk could have a declare in picking the heads of the regulatory agencies that oversee his companies, including the financial instruments and swap percentage and the Federal Trade percentage, said Erik Gordon, a professor at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

Over a parody meme of Musk holding a ceramic sink in the Oval Office – a nod to when he carried an actual sink into Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters after taking over the business – Musk wrote: “Let that sink in.” 

Gita Johar, a professor at Columbia Business School in recent York, said she has not seen such an “explicit quid pro quo” before.

“I ponder it could be a very cozy arrangement that benefits Musk,” Johar said.

Musk potentially being handed the power to shape agencies that he has criticized in the history may be problematic, according to Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis.

“It’s one thing to include business leaders in an advisory committee,” Clark said. “But the chair of any benevolent of efficiency percentage should put the community’s gain first. That would be unfeasible for Elon Musk to do while Elon Musk has so many contentious interactions with federal government agencies.”

What Trump triumph means for Tesla, SpaceX

Tesla shares surged Wednesday as investors bet that Trump’s gain to the White House will boost the electric carmaker. 

Trump, who has expressed disdain for electric vehicles and for President Joe Biden’s EV responsibility credits, signaled a shift after Musk’s endorsement. “I’m for electric cars. I have to be, you recognize, because Elon endorsed me very strongly,” Trump said at an August rally. “So I have no selection.” 

Wedbush financial instruments analyst Daniel Ives estimated Tesla could view a $100 billion-plus jump in trade cap. The elimination of subsidies would hurt Tesla less than other EV makers.

“We depend a Trump triumph could add $40-$50 per distribute to Tesla’s ownership,” he wrote in a note.

With a direct line to the White House, Musk may have a shot at clearing regulatory hurdles for autonomous robotaxis and getting congress to approve a national standard for self-driving cars, business observers told USA TODAY. 

Musk has feuded with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration over the use of driver assistance technology. The safety agency is investigating whether Tesla’s “packed self-driving (supervised)” structure was responsible for four collisions, including one that killed a pedestrian.

On election night, Trump also lauded the role Starlink satellites played in connecting people in hurricane-ravaged North Carolina.

SpaceX is already a key contractor for NASA. Trump has publicly voiced back for Musk’s plans to send rockets to Mars by 2028. “We will land an American astronaut on Mars,” Trump said in October.

Among the other feasible benefits for Musk, experts declare: Decreased regulation could fuel the growth of XAi, Musk’s chatbot operator, and Neuralink, Musk’s brain implant business that was recently cleared by the FDA to run tests on humans. 

“Elon Musk and a sure section of Silicon Valley are extremely concerned we overregulated this economy and there needs to be a radical transformation,” said James Pethokoukis, a elder fellow at the correct-leaning ponder tank American Enterprise Institute. 

Musk has large plans for America PAC

Musk’s ambitions do not complete there. 

Musk is already touting what he claims is record use of X, which could view its influence expand during a second Trump term.

With an estimated total assets of $264 billion, control of a major social media platform and 200 million followers who hang on his every meme, Musk is already planning to tap his personal brand and newfound political power to further the conservative political movement he has embraced. 

“America PAC is going to keep going after this election,” Musk said on a livestream Tuesday as he headed to Palm Beach on his private jet to watch returns with Trump and his household, pledging his super PAC would “aim to weigh in heavily” in upcoming elections.