Trump is supported by Musk as he seeks to put a halt to the progress of Harris
The owner of record of the world’s remaining oil and the person who nearly became the world’s most powerful man saw eye to eye on nearly everything.
Boss of technology giants Elon Musk on Monday opened a X. space platform with a stream for Donald Trump unfiltered and unsubstantiated information, invectives, racism, and terror threats as he seeks to stem the ascendency of Democratic vice presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
The chat is yet another incredible episode in a campaign trumping all rational expectations in the recent weeks that included an assassination bid on Trump and Biden ending his campaign for re-election as President.
The former president has been drowning – losing ground – struggling to come to terms with the rocketing start made by the new Democratic nominee. Sometimes, during this sprawling interview, Musk appeared to be leveraging his influence and audience to teach Trump how to construct a better case against Harris.
“She’s a believer in being radical left,” Trump said at one point of a Democratic foe who has trimmed his polling edge to just three weeks after formally launching her campaign. And the former president, who sought to stay in power despite being voted out by more than 7 million voters, absurdly claimed that Biden had been removed from office for being an ‘illegitimate president’ to give way to Harris. ‘She hasn’t done an interview since this whole scam started, and say what you want, this was a coup. ’ This was a coup of a president of the United States,’ Trump raged.
Musk concurred with Trump that Harris was a far-leftist and, after egging on Trump, he played into the hands of the former president by suggesting that his Democratic rivals were puny and that he was robust. He said, talking about America’s enemies: “Does the American president elicit their fear, or is it someone they do not respect or have no reason to fear?” Then, he added after looking at the footage of the assassination: “Like, okay, you know, like President Trump: don’t @$%& with me. ”
Musk endorsed Trump for the presidency long ago, and he could not have been clearer on Monday night; he wants Trump re-elected. “You are the path to prosperity,” he explained, and then told Trump, “And I think Kamala is the opposite. ”
A man who has massive economic stakes in setting the next administration to a favorable course puts the Republican nominee in front of at least 1. Attaining 3 million concurrent listeners at the worst moment of his campaign so far was impressive. And he predicted that at least 100 million people would view the content in the coming days.
Yet for both Trump and Musk, there was much more that could be won.
Periodically during the gathering, Trump, who for months berated Biden for his age, stuttering and difficulty at times finishing his sentences, seemed to be lisping or slurring his words. It was still unclear if an audio problem was in the cause all along. Asked for an explanation, the ex-president’s campaign spokesman Steven Cheung said: “You know nothing is wrong, must be your hearing. ”
The familiar tone of the conversation between the tycoon and the former head of state was also evidence of what each man stood to gain.
Musk was able to make sure that a possible future president who is associated with transactional leadership saw things as Musk wanted them to see, regarding immigration, economy, less government intervention and fewer taxes. The business entities controlled by Musk, such as SpaceX, an active participant of the American space industry or Tesla, that designs electric cars, depend upon governmental policies. It can be noted that most of the conversation that was held carried the seed of a conflict of interest within. As far as any simple American could ever come to have such an opportunity to somehow influence a potential future president, it would take an awful lot.
That’s probably why Musk himself offered at one point to take a job in the US government — perhaps in an efficiency commission aimed at reducing the administrative state. Trump said that he would love it and that Musk is a great ‘cutter. ’ He reminded everyone that the man is a multi-billionaire.
Trump received much from his investment of more than two hours of his time. Musk did not call him on any of those lies and fabrications—for example, predicting that 60 million illegals will flood the United States if he lost in November.
In the talk, musk discounted the dangers from global warming while defending his revolutionary electric car company. At the same time, Trump spoke about ‘nuclear warming’, which he claimed to be even more dangerous than ‘global warming’. Although it was not entirely clear if he was trying to talk about nuclear energy, Musk said was ‘not as scary as people think. ’
Many people saw the spectacle as the highest instance of how presidential politics has been influenced by new social media and the fragmentation of journalism. Trump could not have been president were it not for Twitter, given that the site was most popular during the period he entered politics in 2016. Those skills of his in exploiting the new medium like no other politician, made that year’s presidential election a match between a man and his moment.
Eight years later, under the stewardship of Musk, who is an absolutist who supports free speech, X has removed most of the mechanisms that prevent disinformation and conspiracy theories from trending on the site. It is, thus, ideal for the ex-president to free himself from the regular media channels where he cannot control the narrative and hence get to spin his narrative of an ‘alternative’ reality, which is quite popular with his millions of followers.
Republicans are already crying about what they claim are favorable press stories on a still-emerging Harris bid. But few candidates have had an easier ride than the Republican nominee got on X on Monday night.
As a clear indication of the international political concerns resulting from the transition of X, a European commissioner, Thierry Breton, directly messaged Musk to inform him that he has to avoid the ‘magnification of undesirable content,’ which is reachable by the buyer in the EU.
Cheung, on X, informed the EU that they should “mind their own business instead of attempting to interfere with the US presidential election,” which seemed to set the tone for what would otherwise be a very jittery relationship between Trump and other members of his team, Musk, and Europe.
It is reminiscing again that Trump for years shunned Twitter and X until he had effusive compliments for Musk.
Trump spun out over one hundred instances of lying and exaggeration on Monday night, on issues as minor as the numbers of migrants coming across the border, the inflation issue that has since moderated, his legal troubles, the current administration’s energy policy, and of course the old canard about countries depositing their prisoners into the US through its southern border.
It is indisputable that many of Trump’s voters, tuning in or later hearing the snippets of the conversation, will have something in common with much of what the former president said, illustrating his political relevance even after Harris reconfigured the race.
And at times, Trump did present a better-focused message for a second term than he has in recent days, where he seemed to lose his bearings as a candidate for a race, he assumed was going to be a cakewalk, against Biden. He and Musk accused the current president and the vice president of pursuing spending policies that have contributed to the inflation that has hurt millions of Americans.
But Trump’s daily rants and retweets also showed why many voters cannot stand him and why there are doubts about whether he can win suburban and female voters in swing states.
At the start of the show, it looked like a new session would turn into a new way for Trump to miss his mark, as the session was stalled by a tech issue. Musk said it was due to a distributed denial of service attack; however, it was not possible to verify at the time that cybercriminals had been involved. “Many people have taken objection simply on the basis of people listening to the President of the United States of America, Trump,” Musk said.
The Harris campaign wasted no time to post a Trump Truth Social post from the previous year, where Trump bashed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis over the initial hitches in his primary campaign during the Twitter Spaces session with Musk.
This was Trump’s first handling of X since getting kicked off the social media platform by its previous owners in the aftermath of the January 6, 2021, storming of the U.S. Capitol by his followers. Musk has restored his account.
conversation,If people had stayed for the two-hour conversation, they would have heard more about Musk’s politics—or the fact that he is not afraid to arm Twitter with his resources and influence to promote his candidate—than anything new about Trump. But the ex-president was overjoyed to have a new friend in what was now a time of political dearth.
“You are such a great person; you have done a tremendous job throughout, you are a great inspiration to many people,” Trump told him before parting ways.
