Elon Musk urges followers to vote Republican. How much sway could he have on the election?

Back in April, Elon Musk advocated that Twitter should be a politically neutral company. Taking sides, he said, would “upset the far right and the far left equally” and could impact the “public trust” of the platform. In September, he doubled down, saying, “I would prefer to stay out of politics.”

Monday morning, however, with the midterm elections less than 24 hours away, the new owner, CEO, and “Complaint Hotline Operator” of Twitter recommended his 115 million followers vote for a Republican Congress on Tuesday.

The question now is: How many independent voters will follow his advice?

Based on polling data, there seems to be little ambiguity when it comes to the 2022 elections, even among independents. People appear pretty determined on how they plan to vote. Partisanship remains at an all-time high, and hot-button issues like abortion have divided most voters. But Musk has proved influential before.

Musk classified himself as a “moderate, and neither Republican nor Democrat” on the All-In podcast back in May. He says he has historically voted Democratic, but despite that, he has attracted a significant number of right-wing followers in recent years, as he sparred with President Joe Biden and advocated bringing back Conservative favorites who were previously banned on Twitter, including Donald Trump.

Musk’s followers certainly pay attention to his comments. As the world’s richest man and one with significant social media “charisma,” he has a rabid fanbase ready and willing to shell out for his flights of business fancy.

Last month, he sold $1 million worth of a perfume called “Burnt Hair” in just a few hours, garnering $100 per bottle. In early 2018, his Boring Company sold $10 million worth of flamethrowers at $500 apiece. And the 420 bottles of Tesla Tequila (selling for $420 each) sold out almost instantly.

Sure, physical items like that have a curiosity and coolness factor for the buyer—and collectors are in the mix as well, looking to make a killing on the resale market. But it was Musk’s powerful cult of personality that made them so desirable in the first place.

Beyond physical products, he’s had a big impact on the crypto world. Dogecoin’s volatile ride to its heights and some of its valleys can be tied directly to Musk’s Tweets or comments.

Back in March, for example, he made an offhand comment that he still owns and doesn’t plan on selling his Dogecoin (along with his Bitcoin and Ethereum) holdings. Dogecoin jumped 7% the next day. Last year, when he announced Tesla would begin accepting the cryptocurrency as payment for merchandise, the altcoin jumped 20%. And, famously, when he made a disparaging joke about Dogecoin on Saturday Night Live last year, prices plunged 30%, wiping out $20 billion in market value.

That influence extends to other cryptos as well. When he added “#bitcoin” to his Twitter biography, prices jumped 16% in 24 hours. And many point to his announcement that Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin as payment as the start of the extended rout the currency faced. Last May, the Wall Street Journal declared him to be “Bitcoin’s biggest influencer.”

Will the people who were willing to trust their finances to Musk’s comments follow his lead on politics? That’s hard to determine, especially since so many who invested heavily in the digital tokens are still licking their wounds. His first announcement that he would be voting Republican this year, when he declared “Massive red wave in 2022” in June, got a very mixed reaction. Some liberals suggested he was mostly interested in avoiding paying taxes on his wealth, while conservatives amplified his message with comments like, “Red tsunami.”

What converted Elon Musk from someone who preferred to stay on the political sidelines to a full-throated supporter of a party he says he used to vote against? Musk didn’t really start his political advocacy until he began feeling snubbed by the Biden administration, which he says gave “a very cold shoulder to Tesla [and] SpaceX.” (In January, Musk complained about Tesla being left out of an official White House video that promoted electric vehicles, saying, “Biden has pointedly ignored Tesla at every turn and falsely stated to the public that GM leads the electric car industry.” He was also upset that Biden didn’t acknowledge SpaceX’s Inspiration4 mission.) In fact, historically he has donated heavily to Democrats.  

For now, that love affair is over. After saying in 2017, “[I] really don’t want to get in politics. I just want to help invent and develop technologies that improve lives,” Musk has become one of the loudest voices for the Republican party, even as he professes his independence.