Both candidates represent 2 sides of the same capitalist/imperialist coin. There is no candidate in this election (except perhaps some minor 3rd party or write-in candidate) that offers anything other than that.
The fact that Elon Musk - a billionaire - purchased and owns a media company like many other billionaires that own the media - just goes to show how similar he is, not different. He is a capitalist, representing the wealthy capitalist class.
Sure, the billionaires squabble over 'branding' like all corporations - whether it should be red capitalism or blue capitalism. But, Trump in no way offers any fundamental change from the status quo in terms of challenging the oligarchs in power, and moving the balance of power more into the hands of the working class.
If anything, power and wealth among the elites, and the billionaires, and the oligarchs will be more greatly concentrated with his proposed policies of austerity, tax cuts, union suppression, and rollback of labor protections.
Simply being affiliated with people who are critical of big pharma or business does not make you a radical. There are plenty of people in the current administration that do just that. For example, the current FTC chair, Lina Khan has been one of the most fierce enforcers of anti-trust and anti-monopoly policies the country has had in decades, blocking several merger and acquisitions that the capitalist 'elites' would have loved to have gone through.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ebQtWZH3TW4
Elizabeth Warren has been very aggressive in going after banks and Wall Street as well.
No one has been more vocal about going after big Pharma for years than perhaps Bernie Sanders
Elon Musk IS the military industrial complex! He makes a lot of money through government and military contracts serving the interests of the US government.
I'm not sure how Musk - one of the world's riches men - has become a champion of the 'little guy'. This is comical. Have you heard how he treats his workers? The appalling labor and safety records of his factories? The union busting?
The courts came after Trump because he's a crook and a grifter, like most other billionaire oligarch types and his business does sketchy things, just like most others.
And finally, if 'elites' of the establishment or some sort of 'deep state' cabal really wanted to end his life, surely they have more effective means at their disposal than a 20yo amateur with no military experience? If you want to speculate about conspiracy theories, I think the more plausible one is that the assassination attempt achieved the aim of driving even more people to rush into Trump's arms than ever before. Whether that was intentional or not, I don't know. But... what a clever way to boost Trump's 'populist' image if it was.
I'm not sure who the 'they' are that you refer to that are 'attacking' him, but candidates being mercilessly 'attacked' by the media is nothing new in the United States. Obama, Biden and Clinton are attacked just as mercilessly and viciously by the competing billionaires and their media apparatus: FOX, SKY, OAN, NewsMax, WSJ, etc.
A populist, Trump is not though. He is a billionaire. He serves billionaire's interests, not those of the working class. His policies will be just as detrimental if not worse than the current ones, because at the end of the day, he aims to preserve the system of capitalism that is vacuuming up wealth to the 1%, not dismantle it.
By the way, yes, the Democrats suck too. Both options suck. That's the point. Real change is not going to come from voting for either of these candidates. It will have to come from a mass labor movement, or some other new party that rises from the working class to challenge the 2 capitalist parties' stranglehold on politics in this country. The US has nothing like an actual 'labor' or socialist party like in many European countries that offer policies in stark contrast to the ruling capitalist elites.
Either way, you're voting for billionaires' interests, neither of which align with ours as the working class.
