Is Elon Musk making a big mistake?

Elon Musk, as is well known, has thrown his not inconsiderable weight behind Donald Trump. His recent interview with Trump was meant to boost the latter through access to a platform with a huge audience.

Musk's support is partly a matter of conviction: he genuinely believes that Trump is the best bet for the US. He backs Trumps' economic policies, as do many other business leaders in the US.

But if Musk thinks that he can benefit from a Trump presidency or if he believes that Trump will dance to his tune, he may well be mistaken, says this article in the Economist. 

The article makes the point that in the interview, it was clearly Trump who was calling the shots. It goes on to cite a recent book that shows how many business leaders' attempts at gaining from backing particular presidents did not work out:

John D. Rockefeller ignored Washington as he built Standard Oil into a vast monopoly in the late 1800s. But when antitrust fervour rose in the 1890s he sought to squash it by backing William McKinley, a president he thought he had in his pocket. McKinley was assassinated in 1901. His replacement was Theodore Roosevelt, a man Standard Oil had unwisely recommended as McKinley’s vice-president because he was too much trouble as governor of New York. Thus began the Progressive Era, and the eventual dismantling of Rockefeller’s monopoly

......Lee Iacocca, who ran Ford and then Chrysler, was a master White House manoeuvrer. He helped persuade Richard Nixon to protect the car industry from Ralph Nader’s safety onslaught. He won loan guarantees for Chrysler from Jimmy Carter in the 1970s. But though he liked Ronald Reagan personally, he rejected the then-president’s free-market tilt and tried (unsuccessfully) to get more government support for his business.

The regulatory state is much bigger than it was earlier. No business leader can afford to seriously antagonise the state, however big he may be. If Musk's bet does not work out, he can pay heavily for it. But even if it does, Musk may not have it his own way- as the history of businessmen's relationship with presidents clearly indicates.