There always seems to be talk about people running for president, whether it’s Oprah Winfrey, The Rock, or the Mayor of Talkeetna, AK, which was a cat. It doesn’t even matter if an election is coming up anytime soon, there’s always talk about who’s going to run. There are plenty of businessmen who tend to enter politics as well, so what about Elon Musk? Can Elon Musk run for president?
Elon Musk can’t run for US President. One of the main criteria to become President of the United States is that you need to be a natural-born citizen and Elon Musk was born in Pretoria, South Africa, so he is ineligible for the presidency.
While Elon Musk can’t run for president, he is eligible to become part of the American government. Other state and federal government positions, such as governors and senators, are required to be U.S. citizens, but they do not need to be natural-born, so Musk could still run for office.
Governor of California
One great example of an American citizen, born outside of the country, joining American politics is Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnie was the Governor of California from 2003 to 2011, after becoming an American citizen on September 17, 1983, after arriving from Austria in 1968.
Schwarzenegger had aspirations for a political career from a young age. He used his bodybuilding and acting as a way to leave Austria for America, and began crafting ways he could get into the political arena. Much like Elon Musk with Tesla, Schwarzenegger did not collect his annual salary as a governor as he was already wealthy.
Government on Mars
It’s no secret that Elon Musk is working towards plans of cultivating a civilization on Mars. He feels it’s required, to prevent the human race from going extinct. So, would he run for President of Mars? Would that even be a thing?
When asked about the political structure of Mars, Musk responded that he felt it would be a direct democracy as he felt there would be less corruption than if it was a representative democracy.
There’s a good chance that Musk wouldn’t become the president of a Mars civilization either. And not because he was born in South Africa, but because there’s a good chance he’ll be too old if, and when, a colony is up and running on Mars.
Musk’s Political Beliefs
So, if he were able to run for president, which party would he run for? Like many of Musk’s beliefs, his political ones tend to be all over the place as well. He seems to have covered every aspect of the political spectrum; with the exception of Socialism.
While he doesn’t speak publicly very often about politics, even skirting the issue at times, one thing for sure is that he’s not in favor of Socialism. This revelation came about after someone accused Musk of being too socialist to have a libertarian government on Mars. He took to Twitter to refute the allegations, stating that he was a registered independent.
In addition to claiming to be a registered independent, he’s also previously donated to the Republican Party and the Democratic party. He states he donates to both so that he can keep an open dialogue open with the candidates. More recently, publicly threw he support behind Democratic presidential nominee, Andrew Yang, in August of 2019.
Like we said, he’s kind of all over the place and honestly, we have no idea which party he would run for, if he could.
Musk’s Government Work
Though Musk hasn’t run for any form of office, yet, he has done some work for, or with, the government. He has had multiple contracts with NASA which is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government.
In addition, he was appointed to two advisory boards during Donald Trump’s presidency, but ended up stepping down after Trump’s denial of global warming.
Staying on the West Coast
Looks like Elon Musk not be moving to D.C. anytime soon and will be staying in California. Even if he was eligible to run for president, it doesn’t look like something he’s interested in. Good thing too as he just started talking about playing PacMan in a Tesla, we need him to look into that more and forget about politics.