Interview with hurdles Musk offers Trump his help in government
Elon Musk announced an "interview" with Donald Trump. However, the conversation turned into a pure campaign show for the ex-president - but was overshadowed by technical problems.
In a live conversation with Donald Trump, tech billionaire Elon Musk presented himself as an ardent fan of the former president. The currently richest person in the world acted as a cue for the 78-year-old Republican and giggled as he agreed with his statements. Trump promised the largest deportation of immigrants in US history and an expansion of oil production if he returned to the White House. However, the livestream, which was announced with great fanfare, began around 45 minutes late due to technical problems.
Headaches from too muchCO2 in the air
Musk is the CEO of electric car manufacturer Tesla, which has declared an accelerated transition to sustainable energy to be the company's "mission". However, the 53-year-old felt compelled to clarify his stance on climate change in the interview. He was against demonizing the oil and gas industry, Musk said. There is a demand for fossil fuels in the world - "and it's probably better for the United States to supply them than some other countries".
At the same time, he does not consider the risk from global warming to be as high as others - but if the concentration ofCO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise, this could lead to headaches, Musk said.
No contradiction for Trump
Musk had advertised the conversation as an "interview" with Trump. In the end, however, it largely played out like one of the ex-president's election campaign appearances. Trump once again claimed that with him as president, there would have been neither the Russian attack on Ukraine, nor the Hamas attack on Israel, nor the high inflation in the USA. Musk left all of this unchallenged.
The two-hour conversation took place on Musk's online platform X, formerly Twitter. Trump claimed that around 60 million users were listening to the livestream - while the number of 1.2 million listeners was displayed for all to see. "Am I getting paid for this or not?" Trump joked at the end.
Trump has a lisp - and nobody knows why
The ex-president could be heard throughout the conversation with an unusual lisp that remained unexplained. Theories online ranged from dental problems to a bad microphone or noise-canceling software.
Musk's live event came at a difficult time for Trump. Since incumbent Joe Biden (81) dropped out of the race for the Democrats and Vice President Kamala Harris (59) took his place, Trump has been under pressure in the polls - especially in the few states that have ultimately decided the election in recent years, the so-called "swing states".
Harris' campaign team also took the opportunity to launch an attack. "Whatever this was" demonstrated Trump's extremism, they said in a statement about the interview. And the fact that the ex-president's entire election campaign was in the service of people like himself and Musk - "self-absorbed rich guys" who couldn't easily stage a livestream in 2024 - also speaks for itself, it added.
Musk explains problems with cyber attack
In fact, hardly anyone was able to dial into the livestream at the announced time. Musk claimed on X that the platform had been the target of a massive DDOS attack. In such attacks, websites are flooded with large numbers of requests to bring them to their knees. Shortly afterwards, the technology blog "The Verge" reported on a source within the company that there had been no such attack.
When Musk hosted a livestream for the then Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis at X last year, the broadcast began with a considerable delay because the servers were initially overloaded. Following the purchase of Twitter, Musk had laid off numerous employees and cut back on investments.
Trump and Musk first spoke about the assassination attempt in which the ex-president was injured in the ear during a campaign event around a month ago. Musk, who often promotes conspiracy theories, tried several times to steer the conversation towards the question of how it was possible for the shooter to get onto a roof with a direct view of the stage unhindered. Trump did not respond.
He also ignored Musk's offer to help on a panel to cut government spending. The tech billionaire also campaigned for political steps that would benefit his various companies. For example, he appealed for the regulations of the FDA health regulator to be relaxed. In addition to Tesla, Musk also runs the brain implant company Neuralink.
Musk recently drifted to the right
The relationship between Musk and Trump used to be tense. According to his own statements, the tech billionaire voted for Biden in 2020 - and in the current election campaign only tried to make the hapless Trump challenger Ron DeSantis big. In the summer of 2022, Musk wrote that it was time for Trump to sail off into the sunset.
In recent years, Musk's views have drifted further and further to the right - and much of what he writes on X to his 190 million followers could also come directly from Trump. He called the Democrats a "party of division and hate". He claimed without any factual basis that they supported illegal immigration to turn the upcoming election in their favor. He referred to Kamala Harris as "literally a communist" - just as Trump likes to raise the spectre of the "radical left" that could destroy America.
Snubbed by Biden
Some observers point out that Musk felt chronically snubbed by Biden because the president steadfastly refused to recognize Tesla's leading role in the electric car business. He was particularly offended that Tesla and he were left out of an e-car summit at the White House in summer 2021. In contrast, car giants General Motors, Ford and Stellantis, which hardly produced any electric vehicles, were in the spotlight. A key reason may have been that Biden has strong ties to trade unions - while Musk considers them decidedly unnecessary at Tesla.
