Was crowd at Musk’s ‘town hall’ only there for the payday? That’s the million-dollar question
The world’s richest man was late for his own town hall.
The crowd had been queuing for several hours. The line of enthusiasm stretched out of the hotel in this county town in Pennsylvania.
Lancaster, in Lancaster County, is an hour and half west of Philadelphia, and is one of many tight battlegrounds where the election will be decided.
The people here had all come to hear from Elon Musk. They had also come because one of them would win a million dollars.
Among the crowd outside, some told me they had already voted, thanks to this state’s early voting procedures. Others would only do it on the day, they said. But all we spoke to were locked-in Trump supporters.
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The Space X, Tesla and Twitter billionaire has been handing out million-dollar cheques as part of an effort to persuade people to register to vote and crucially to vote early.
It’s quite the twist for Trump’s surrogates to be encouraging early voting after the former president’s years of claims that early voting is the source of electoral fraud.
But Team Trump knows that early voting is the surest way to make sure they maximize the number who might vote Republican.
There was something very unusual about the evening. It was hard not to think that people had been drawn here because of the prospect of winning the $1m.
The format of the evening was loose. Because of the principal’s late arrival (never explained or apologised for) the big screens were fired up with live sport. That satisfied the crowd of about a thousand for a little while.
There were a few mutters behind me about whether the weather (perfect here) had maybe delayed his landing.
It was unfortunate for the organisers that the ad break filler from the American football was a campaign advertisement for the Harris campaign. It was met with pantomime boos.
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Tim Walz rips into Elon Musk
Eventually he arrived and it was an immediate reminder that he is no orator. With a Muskian awkwardness he mumbled his first few words… “so, erm, yeah” he said, filling air.
Then a little substance: “This is an election that is a fork in the road… it’s essential… it’s like, we need safe cities, secure borders, sensible spending, basic stuff.”
From there, it was, well, meandering. It went from discussion of how excellent his social media site Twitter (now X) is, to how legacy media editors shouldn’t control our news (he didn’t explain why he should be allowed to with his obscure algorithms, zero accountability, and platform where anything goes).
There was plenty of talk about Mars and the existence of aliens. He enjoyed being told by the crowd how excellent Teslas are, especially cybertrucks.
The million-dollar moment came about an hour in, to the relief of those who could then leave, knowing that they hadn’t won.
The winner was, naturally, delighted. Mr Musk reacted like he had given away a tenner.
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Between all this, the questions from the crowd were mostly thoughtful. They clearly enjoyed being face-to-face with him.
They wanted to know his views on higher education (probably not worth it he seemed to suggest), how to reform government (‘drain the swap’ someone shouted, ‘yes’ Musk said).
He was asked to share the most useful piece of advice he had ever received.
His answer: Vote Republican, study physics and “aspire to be less wrong”.
There was an uncomfortable amount of talk from Musk about shooting.
“No one is trying to kill Kamala,” he said, as he has done before, suggesting there was little point in shooting her. “They will get another puppet… no one is trying to kill Biden.”
Then he added: “They’ve tried to kill Trump, twice.
“Trump is not beholden to anyone and that’s why the machine is trying to kill him.”
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In answer to the question about government reform, streamlining the system and making the whole thing more efficient, he had another shooting analogy.
“It’s kind of like being in a room where the entire room is covered with targets and so you can shoot in any direction and not miss. It’s like impossible to miss because in every direction there is a target.”
The crowd roared.
The wealthy, celebrities and media moguls have long been deployed by both sides in American politics to boost campaigns. But never has a singularly powerful man inserted himself into a campaign quite like this.
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Elon Musk gives out a million dollars in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
No one asked him about potential conflicts of interest which could emerge if he was to join a Trump administration given his companies have huge government contracts.
No one asked him about the tax breaks he could enjoy as an administration official who divests his companies as he’d be forced to.
And no one asked about the Wall Street Journal’s reporting which claims he’s had multiple conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Donald Trump has agreed to send “top of the line weapons” to NATO to support Ukraine – and threatened Russia with “severe” tariffs if it doesn’t agree to end the war.
Speaking with NATO secretary general Mark Rutte during a meeting at the White House, the US president said: “We’ve made a deal today where we are going to be sending them weapons, and they’re going to be paying for them.
“This is billions of dollars worth of military equipment which is going to be purchased from the United States,” he added, “going to NATO, and that’s going to be quickly distributed to the battlefield.”
Weapons being sent include surface-to-air Patriot missile systems and batteries, which Ukraine has asked for to defend itself from Russian air strikes.
Pic: Reuters
Mr Trump also said he was “very unhappy” with Russia, and threatened “severe tariffs” of “about 100%” if there isn’t a deal to end the war in Ukraine within 50 days.
The White House added that the US would put “secondary sanctions” on countries that buy oil from Russia if an agreement was not reached.
It comes after weeks of frustration from Mr Trump against Vladimir Putin’s refusal to agree to an end to the conflict, with the Russian leader telling the US president he would “not back down” from Moscow’s goals in Ukraine at the start of the month.
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Trump says Putin ‘talks nice and then bombs everybody’
During the briefing on Monday, Mr Trump said he had held calls with Mr Putin where he would think “that was a nice phone call,” but then “missiles are launched into Kyiv or some other city, and that happens three or four times”.
“I don’t want to say he’s an assassin, but he’s a tough guy,” he added.
Earlier this year, Mr Trump told Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy “you’re gambling with World War Three” in a fiery White House meeting, and suggested Ukraine started the war against Russia as he sought to negotiate an end to the conflict.
After Mr Trump’s briefing, Russian senator Konstantin Kosachev said on Telegram: “If this is all that Trump had in mind to say about Ukraine today, then all the steam has gone out.”
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Meanwhile, Mr Zelenskyy met with US special envoy Keith Kellogg in Kyiv, where they “discussed the path to peace” by “strengthening Ukraine’s air defence, joint production, and procurement of defence weapons in collaboration with Europe”.
He thanked both the envoy for the visit and Mr Trump “for the important signals of support and the positive decisions for both our countries”.
At least 30 people have been killed in the Syrian city of Sweida in clashes between local military groups and tribes, according to Syria’s interior ministry.
Officials say initial figures suggest around 100 people have also been injured in the city, where the Druze faith is one of the major religious groups.
The interior ministry said its forces will directly intervene to resolve the conflict, which the Reuters news agency said involved fighting between Druze gunmen and Bedouin Sunni tribes.
It marks the latest episode of sectarian violence in Syria, where fears among minority groups have increased since Islamist-led rebels toppled President Bashar al Assad in December, installing their own government and security forces.
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In March, Sky’s Stuart Ramsay described escalating violence within Syria
The violence reportedly erupted after a wave of kidnappings, including the abduction of a Druze merchant on Friday on the highway linking Damascus to Sweida.
Last April, Sunni militia clashed with armed Druze residents of Jaramana, southeast of Damascus, and fighting later spread to another district near the capital.
But this is the first time the fighting has been reported inside the city of Sweida itself, the provincial capital of the mostly Druze province.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reports the fighting was centred in the Maqwas neighbourhood east of Sweida and villages on the western and northern outskirts of the city.
It adds that Syria’s Ministry of Defence has deployed military convoys to the area.
Western nations, including the US and UK, have been increasingly moving towards normalising relations with Syria.
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UK aims to build relationship with Syria
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Concerns among minority groups have intensified following the killing of hundreds of Alawites in March, in apparent retaliation for an earlier attack carried out by Assad loyalists.
That was the deadliest sectarian flare-up in years in Syria, where a 14-year civil war ended with Assad fleeing to Russia after his government was overthrown by rebel forces.
The city of Sweida is in southern Syria, about 24 miles (38km) north of the border with Jordan.
The man convicted of the murder of British student Meredith Kercher has been charged with sexual assault against an ex-girlfriend.
Rudy Guede, 38, was the only person who was definitively convicted of the murder of 21-year-old Ms Kercher in Perugia, Italy, back in 2007.
He will be standing trial again in November after an ex-girlfriend filed a police report in the summer of 2023 accusing Guede of mistreatment, personal injury and sexual violence.
Guede, from the Ivory Coast, was released from prison for the murder of Leeds University student Ms Kercher in 2021, after having served about 13 years of a 16-year sentence.
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Since last year – when this investigation was still ongoing – Guede has been under a “special surveillance” regime, Sky News understands, meaning he was banned from having any contact with the woman behind the sexual assault allegations, including via social media, and had to inform police any time he left his city of residence, Viterbo, as ruled by a Rome court.
Guede has been serving a restraining order and fitted with an electronic ankle tag.
The Kercher murder case, in the university city of Perugia, was the subject of international attention.
Ms Kercher, a 21-year-old British exchange student, was found murdered in the flat she shared with her American roommate, Amanda Knox.
The Briton’s throat had been cut and she had been stabbed 47 times.
(L-R) Raffaele Sollecito, Meredith Kercher and Amanda Knox. File pic: AP
Ms Knox and her then-boyfriend, Raffaele Sollecito, were placed under suspicion.
Both were initially convicted of murder, but Italy’s highest court overturned their convictions, acquitting them in 2015.
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