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UPDATE: Elon Musk‘s much publicized conversation with Donald Trump stretched over two hours, even after a glitch delayed the start for about 40 minutes.
The billionaire entrepreneur and the Republican presidential nominee share a number of bombastic personality traits, and that showed throughout the session, more a campaign-boosting lovefest than an interview with probing questions.
While Musk and Trump haven’t always had a warm regard for each other, the night’s event showed that each had reason for mutual admiration: For Musk, it was a bit of a welcome back to Trump on X, who has posted little since he was reinstated. For Trump, it was extended airtime to an audience of about 1.2 million, as he watches his new rival Kamala Harris ascend in the polls.
Most of the talk was pure Trump, as he riffed on immigration, the economy and national security, with Musk muttering in agreement. At certain points, Musk did try to make the case for sustainable energy, and moving away from fossil fuels to solar, while Trump countered with a pitch for nuclear energy and a suggestion that Musk put solar panels on cars.
The initial news of the talk was the big glitch: Users who tried to tune in at its 8 p.m. ET start were unable to access it. The failure to launch had shades of another big moment for X’s Spaces feature, when Ron DeSantis went on the platform to launch his presidential campaign, only to suffer the same type of bugginess. Back then, his rival Trump teased DeSantis for the moment.
This time, it was Harris’ campaign at the listen, and they trumpeted one moment that may prove consequential as the presidential campaigns battle out out for the Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania swing states.
“They go on strike and you say, ‘That’s OK, you’re all gone,'” Trump told Musk, praising his firing of workers for going on strike.
Musk also tried to make the case that Trump’s positions on the border are more moderate than they have been portrayed, as he emphasized that the former president was talking illegal immigration. Trump made the point, too, but also emphasized that his presidency would see mass deportations.
Detractors predicted that, given Musk’s endorsement of Trump, the conversation would really be a campaign ad. But what it was was an often rambling sit down between the two — hardly a calculated effort to hit certain talking points. After it was over, Musk invited Harris to do the same on X, while X CEO Linda Yaccarino deemed the event a success. “Unscripted. Unfiltered. So Real. So good!” she wrote.
PREVIOUSLY: At 8 p.m. ET, Donald Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social, “Getting ready for “chat” with Elon. BIG audience. ENJOY! DJT”
But the much promoted conversation between Trump and X owner Elon Musk was beset with a massive technical problem for about 40 minutes, as users were unable to access to Spaces chat. Listeners instead got the message “unavailable.”
Musk wrote, “There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.” The rest of X, though, appeared to be working. Musk said that they had tested the system to handle 8 million concurrent listeners earlier in the day.
When the chat finally got started, Trump recounted the details of the assassination attempt on his life, before he and Musk shifted to some of the campaign’s signature issues, including immigration.
The glitch was reminiscent of the technical snafus that beset the launch of Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign last year, which the Florida governor announced on X Spaces. Harris’ campaign even posted one of Trump’s comments from then mocking DeSantis for the glitches.
According to X, about 1.2 million were listening.
Musk has endorsed Trump, and the event was not an interview but an extended conversation. Trump had free rein to go on extended riffs on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, with Musk either in agreement or, at times, trying to outline how the former president’s positions were more moderate than extreme.
Musk, for instance, pointed out how Trump was for legal immigration, yet the former president again pledged to launch mass deportations. He also again called for ending the Department of Education, one of the ideas contained in Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation roadmap that Trump’s campaign has disavowed.
Musk did try to explain that climate change should be a concern, and that there should be a move toward sustainable energy. Trump responded by the need to contain nuclear proliferation but also harness nuclear energy. Trump did praise Musk at points, including for the billionaire’s firing of striking workers.
Mostly, though, the conservation was pure Trump, a mix of superlative and grievance.
He also claimed that, after the June debate with Biden, “one of the people at CNN said, ‘That was the greatest performance I’ve ever witnessed.’ And then, two days later, they didn’t talk about that. They just said [Biden] was bad. But that’s okay. That’s the way I get treated, and I don’t mind that at all.”
He called Harris “incompetent” and “as bad as Biden,” but he expressed anger at the Democrats’ switch of candidates.
“He 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. He didn’t want to leave, and they said, ‘We can do it the nice way or we can do it the hard way.'” Biden, in fact, did do an interview with CBS News’ Robert Costa, and it ran on Sunday Morning last weekend.
Trump did offer some praise to Harris, for the illustration of her on the new cover of Time. “She looked like the great first lady, Melania. She didn’t look like [Queen] Camilla, that’s right, but of course she’s a beautiful woman, and so we will leave it at that.”
