A day after Elon Musk described Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy as a “very promising candidate,” the biotech exec is returning the favor, signaling a growing closeness between the surging candidate and tech CEO, even as Musk has been associated with the Ron DeSantis campaign since its launch in May.
“What [Musk] did at Twitter is a good example of what I want to do to the administrative state,” Ramaswamy said in a Friday interview with Fox News. “Take out the 75 percent of the dead weight cost, improve the actual experience of what it’s supposed to do.” Ramaswamy also vowed to release government files in the manner of Musk’s “Twitter files” if elected.
The controversial Tesla owner’s initial positive comments came Thursday in response to a Ramaswamy interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson. “He states his beliefs clearly,” Musk wrote early Friday morning in response to a Ramaswamy campaign video captioned with the ten “Truths” that Ramaswamy has recently made into a campaign motto. (“God is real” and “There are two genders” are the first two).
These comments come as Ramaswamy continues to climb in the polls. An Emerson College poll released last week put the biotech investor in a tie for second place with DeSantis, whose numbers continue to slide. When asked about their second choice in a recent Fox News poll, 37% of Trump supporters picked DeSantis, while 22% opted for Ramaswamy. In March, those numbers were 52% and 0%, respectively.
Ramaswamy appears to be peeling off support from more than one major DeSantis booster. On Friday night, Musk responded to a pro-Ramaswamy post from venture capitalist David Sacks. “Vivek is increasingly looking like a strong candidate,” Musk wrote. Sacks has been a major DeSantis supporter and moderated the Florida governor’s glitchy, error-filled campaign launch conversation with Musk.
Throughout the spring, Ramaswamy and Sacks had traded barbs over Sacks’ support for the Silicon Valley Bank bailout, with Sacks accusing the Republican candidate in March of leveling “unfounded ad hominem attacks.” In May, Ramaswamy responded to Sacks’ hosting of the DeSantis campaign launch by arguing that DeSantis should have been asked about the bailout, “since his megadonor @DavidSacks was the most vocal supporter” of it.
Ramaswamy’s rise certainly has not gone unnoticed in the DeSantis campaign. A trove of documents posted by a firm associated with DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down ahead of Wednesday’s debate in Milwaukee encouraged the Florida governor to “take a sledgehammer to Vivek Ramaswamy,” The New York Times reported Thursday. The memos advise DeSantis to name-call his competitor “‘Fake Vivek’ Or ‘Vivek the Fake.’”
“We have a choice between super PAC puppets who are being propped up with prepped lines and millions of dollars to go along with it, versus, in my case, I’m an outsider,” Ramaswamy said on Fox News Thursday in response to the documents.
Jack McCordick
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