Elon Musk’s employees are mostly donating to Kamala Harris. In addition, 100 Republicans are turning away from Donald Trump. All information in the news blog.
10.15 p.m.: Mark Robinson, candidate for governor of North Carolina, is facing serious allegations because of problematic online comments. He made partly racist comments in a porn forum between 2008 and 2012, reports CNN. In these comments he called himself a “Black Nazi” and spoke out in favor of the reintroduction of slavery. You can read more background information here.
20:04: The Secret Service has apparently launched an investigation into Elon Musk. According to a report, the agency is examining whether Musk is a threat to President Joe Biden and presidential candidate Kamala Harris. The background is a post on his platform X. Read more about it here.
13.11: According to “OpenSecrets,” the majority of Elon Musk’s employees donate to the Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris. Figures from the nonpartisan organization that studies lobbying in the United States provide this result.
According to the report, SpaceX employees donated around $35,000 to the Vice President – but only $8,000 to Donald Trump. Harris’s election campaign received around $43,000 from Tesla employees and Trump’s team received $25,000.
Elon Musk is one of Donald Trump’s most prominent supporters. He has spoken out publicly in favor of the former president several times – most recently, he attacked Taylor Swift after she recommended voting for Kamala Harris on X.
5.27 am: One hundred Republicans, mostly former government officials from the areas of national security and foreign policy, have turned their backs on the Republican Party’s candidate for president in an open letter. In their opinion, Donald Trump’s character is not suitable to run the White House. “We believe that the President of the United States must be a serious, reliable leader with strong principles.” And that is clearly not the case with Trump.
Therefore, Republican party members spoke out in favor of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, even though they disagreed with her policies on many points, according to the letter, which was made available to several US media outlets. “We are convinced that she has the necessary qualities that are needed. And Donald Trump does not.”
The authors and signatories of the open letter are senior officials of former presidents, as well as the administrations of Ronald Reagan, George Bush senior, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. These include former US Defense Secretaries William Cohen and Chuck Hagel and former CIA Directors William Webster and Michael Hayden.
2.05 am: Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives have failed with a controversial budget bill. The proposal was defeated on Wednesday by a vote of 202 to 220, with 14 Republicans voting against and three Democrats voting for. Democrats rejected the version submitted for a vote by House Speaker Mike Johnson because it was tied to an election law change that would require Americans to show proof of citizenship when registering to vote. Trump has made illegal immigration a central theme of his re-election campaign, falsely claiming that Democrats would register illegal immigrants to vote.
Johnson then announced the drafting of a new interim budget to prevent a potential government shutdown after Oct. 1, when current funding runs out. “Now we’re going back to the drawing board, drafting a new plan and finding another solution,” Johnson said. “I’m already talking to colleagues.” Democrats in the House and Senate have expressed their willingness to pass an interim funding bill to avoid a government shutdown that would send hundreds of thousands of federal workers on furlough after the funding runs out.
