Elon Musk is planning to attend ex-President Donald Trump’s Butler, Pa. rally over the weekend, the billionaire Tesla CEO announced late Thursday.
“I will be there to support!” Musk wrote in a retweet of Trump’s promotion for the rally on Saturday.
The Republican presidential nominee shared the infamous photo of himself raising a first in the air with blood smeared across his face immediately following an assassination attempt at his first rally in Butler on July 13.
“I’m coming back to Butler!” is scrawled across the image in all capital letters.
Musk, 53, officially endorsed Trump, 78, about a half hour after the July attempt on the 45th president’s life in which a bullet grazed his ear.
Trump will now return to the scene of the assassination attempt — the Butler Farm Show grounds — 12 weeks after the shooting that killed rally attendee Corey Comperatore and severely wounded two others.
The would-be assassin, 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, was shot and killed by Secret Service agents shortly after he opened fire from a rooftop on the outskirts of the fairgrounds.
“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Musk wrote on X, which he owns, 30 minutes after Trump’s ear was clipped by one of Crooks’ bullets.
The billionaire tech tycoon loudly criticized the Secret Service following the assassination attempt.
The attempt led to a probe into the Secret Service’s actions — or lack thereof — on the fateful day. Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned soon after.
Trump tried to blame the White House during an interview Wednesday in which he confessed he’s “always worried” about his safety at rallies.
“Well, I’m always worried,” the former president said on NewsNation’s “CUOMO” show when asked if he was concerned for his safety ahead of his return to the very place where he was shot at.
“I think that the White House isn’t treating us very good,” he added.
“It’s very unfair the way we’ve been treated,” Trump claimed. “And we have to get better security. It’s really being led more so by the White House than anybody else.”
President Biden, 81, signed a bill enhancing Secret Service protection for Trump on Tuesday after it passed the House and Senate unanimously.
The bill gives Trump the same level of security measures and Secret Service personnel as the president and vice president get.
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The US sitting president has always had the highest protection level — higher than former presidents and presidential nominees as a longheld standard.
But calls for the Republican nominee to get increased security came after a second foiled attempt on his life last month at Trump’s Palm Beach, Fla. golf course.
An eagle-eyed Secret Service agent spotted the barrel of a gun peeking through a fence on the exterior of the course and stopped the gunman, later identified as Ryan Wesley Routh, before he fired any bullets.
The Secret Service expects 15,000 to 60,000 people to attend Trump’s second rally in Butler on Saturday and have streamlined security measures and communications in preparation.
Hundreds of Secret Service agents and state and local law enforcement officers as well as drones and snipers will be working the event.
