It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, not so long ago they didn’t like each other very much.
“I don’t hate the man,” Elon Musk tweeted in July 2022, “but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset.”
The Tesla and Space X founder’s comment was prompted by a profane Donald Trump insult – put simply, calling Mr Musk a liar.
Trump accused Mr Musk of lying to him about who he voted for in the last presidential election.
“Elon is not going to buy Twitter,” Trump crowed to a rally crowd in Alaska.
How Musk and Trump put aside their differences
On Monday, Trump returned to Twitter/X after a year-long hiatus, hours before he and Mr Musk were due to sit down for what many expect to be a convivial chat streamed on the platform.
Both men will be hoping the conversation reaches an audience beyond the hyperactive paid-for users who dominate X discussion these days – and that it will be free of the technical glitches that overshadowed Mr DeSantis’s ill-fated campaign.
Mr Musk, who became a US citizen in 2002, has said that he voted almost exclusively for Democrats for decades.
But he soured on President Biden over issues including unions – Mr Musk is opposed to efforts to organise his car workers – and over a snub.
He was not invited to the 2021 White House electric vehicle summit, despite Tesla’s status as one of the world’s largest EV manufacturers.
