Politics

Elon Musk Named in Bombshell Election Meddling Claim

NO HOLDING BACK

We know Musk is powerful. But how much does he influence our elections, exactly?

Elon Musk's election matrix
Photo Illustration by Victoria Sunday/The Daily Beast/Getty Images

Elon Musk appeared unusually certain about the outcome of the 2024 presidential election before the results came in, according to a new documentary.

The bombshell claim comes from the mother of one of Elon Musk’s (many) children, Ashley St. Clair, who alleged in a forthcoming documentary that the Tesla tycoon had a “degree of certainty” about the 2024 election results before they came in that “I had never seen before.”

“He had told me [before the election] he was going to unleash the ‘anomaly in the matrix,’ ” St. Clair says in championed documentarist Alex Gibney’s film, Musk, which was previewed by The Hollywood Reporter.

According to the outlet, the film shows a text exchange between Musk, 55, and St. Clair, 28, onscreen, backing up her claims.

St. Clair announced last year that she had a child with Musk.
St. Clair announced last year that she had a child with Musk. Ashley St. Clair/X

“I have ten thousand lasers in space,” the SpaceX founder allegedly wrote. A spokesperson for SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.

In the documentary, an off-camera Gibney can be heard asking St. Clair if Musk was referring to Starlink in their conversation, to which she replies, “I mean, I don’t know where else he has space lasers.”

Musk made no secret of his involvement in the 2024 presidential election, funneling more than $290 million into Donald Trump’s last presidential campaign and hosting town halls in swing states. He famously gave away a $1 million check to a rallygoer selected at random after they signed a petition to support a PAC he created.

Elon Musk speaks alongside U.S. President Donald Trump to reporters in the Oval Office of the White House on May 30, 2025 in Washington, DC.
The winding down of Elon Musk's DOGE after less than a year marked a turbulent end to President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash federal spending. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

However, questions about his obscure data-collecting efforts and the role he plans to take in forthcoming elections remain unclear. In his documentary, Gibney hammers home that Musk’s brief stint at the helm of an army of twentysomething men known as the “DOGE” squad involved more than what was publicly known. In addition to carelessly slashing federal government jobs and stripping USAID from countries around the world, the X owner gained access to the data of tens of millions of Americans.

What, exactly, he does with that information is unknown. But combined with the data he’s already obtained through his control of X, it makes him an undeniable and inescapable force in American politics.

The documentary comes as Musk has reentered the MAGA movement, following his explosive public feud with Trump, 80, after his exit as head of the Department of Government Efficiency.

St. Clair, for her part, has publicly denounced the hard right after years of championing its causes. Last month, during an appearance on The Daily Beast Podcast, she said a bitter custody battle she’s waging against Musk helped expose the broader right-wing political project as a “cult” that treats women poorly.

Musk, who is the father of at least 14 children with four different women, publicly questioned whether St. Clair’s second child, Romulus, was his, as she claimed after he was born in September 2024.

Then, after St. Clair expressed solidarity with Musk’s 20-year-old daughter, Vivian Wilson, who is transgender, Musk responded: “I will be filing for full custody today, given her statements implying she might transition a one-year-old boy.”