American’s have a similar view of President-elect Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk — a key ally as he prepares to return to the White House — when it comes to favorability, according to a new survey.
The Associated Press-NORC Research Center poll, released Tuesday, found 41 percent of respondents have a “very” or “somewhat” favorable view of Musk. Similarly, 36 percent said the same about Trump.
On the other side, 51 percent of respondents said they view SpaceX CEO very or somewhat unfavorably, compared to 60 percent for the president-elect, the survey shows.
During the 2024 White House contest, Musk forcefully supported Trump’s bid, spending at least $250 million to secure a second term for the embattled former president, who was facing several legal battles, according to recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.
The billionaire, who runs multiple companies and is the richest person in the world, was an active surrogate on the campaign trail while boosting his preferred candidates on X, a social media platform he bought in 2022.
Following Trump’s triumph in November, the president-elect tapped Musk and his former 2024 GOP primary rival Vivek Ramaswamy to lead a newly-formed “Department of Government Efficiency.” The team is focused on restructuring federal agencies, slashing regulations and cutting “wasteful expenditures.”
Musk’s favorability among Democrats dropped to single digits while campaigning for Trump, previous polling shows.
An NBC News poll from September found that only 6 percent of Democrats had positive feelings about the entrepreneur while 79 percent said they had negative feelings. The survey also found that 62 percent of Republicans had positive feelings while only 14 percent had a negative view.
Independents in the NBC survey were split, with 31 percent having a positive feeling whereas the other 36 percent had a negative perception of Musk.
The AP-NORC poll used interviews from 1,251 American adults from Dec. 5-9. It has a margin of error of 3.7 percentage points.
