The former, absolutely. Your refusal to believe this seems to come from the idea that Musk has clear principles that he adheres to. He does not. His only concerns are money and power.

Musk's whole schtick is quid pro quo and thin-skinism. He complains about Chinese EVs, then dashes on a jet to fly to China to meet Xi and scores a deal for Tesla -- no more whining about China. He publicly entertains Jewish conspiracy theories, claims he's pro peace in general, then gets on a jet to meet Netanyahu and the next thing you know he's clapping Netanyahu's speech in Congress.

His whole transition to his current persona can be traced to when is son announced their own transition and disowned him. His bumbling political outbursts are all self-serving garbage all the way down.

Apart from his morality being flexible, his admiration for various murderous oppressors is famous at this point and his very obvious continuous mental issues only allow him to act in several modes. At the end, brilliant broken little boy with severe daddy issues and uber massive ego, stuff which he can never hope to fully tackle and it doesn't seem he is even trying to.

So, trying to map his responses to simple if x then y won't work like with normal balanced folks, he is too unstable and emotional for that.

It's not about left and right. It's about who's Putin-aligned and who isn't.