What’s in the 2024 US election for Elon Musk?

The University of Michigan’s Professor Gordon agrees. He says Mr Musk sees himself as a someone who has been held back by regulators, and feels that government intervention has stifled the development of the technologies he is focused on, such as autonomous driving.

“He wants to be sort of on the frontier, [a] wild and woolly entrepreneur who can break new paths and not be bagged down by regulation, which tends to fall five, 10, 20 years behind advances in technology,” Prof Gordon says.

“Musk wants to go the other way,” he adds. “He wants to go to Mars.”

If he wins in November, Donald Trump has suggested that Mr Musk could oversee “cost cutting” in the US government. Even if he doesn’t do that exact job, Mr Musk would have Trump’s ear thanks to his support during the campaign, observers believe, and he could have a strong influence on the administration’s decision-making.

Mr Musk, for his part, has said he would be open to the idea of leading a “department of government efficiency” to end regulation’s “strangulation” of the US.

That position, Democrats say, could present a complex conflict of interest, given the billions in government contracts Mr Musk has received for SpaceX and Tesla.

“That’s kind of deeply both unethical and illegal,” says Lenny Mendonca, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s former chief economic and business adviser.

Mendonca believes that those with intertwined government and regulatory relationships “can have a voice” but should not be in a position of authority over those same interests.

Lawrence Noble, a former general counsel at the Federal Election Commission, has questioned the legality of Mr Musk’s giveaways in the election cycle.

Mr Noble believes that this form of campaigning should concern Americans who value safe work environments and consumer protections.

“We know what companies do when left to their own devices. They put profit and stockholder value and CEO compensation above safety, and they kind of write off the safety issues as a cost of doing business,” he tells the BBC.

“It’s dangerous to have somebody who views business that way, and views government that way, in charge of safety,” he adds.

For Mr Musk – who relishes being a “disrupter” and renegade – there’s little question that his lucrative relationships with the US government will continue, no matter the result of the November election.

But his brand, and his reputation, are now tied to Donald Trump’s – and his actions suggest he knows it.