"For a billionaire with a penchant for flirting with fascist ideas and cozying up to far-right figures, Elon Musk has a knack for making right-wing politicians look foolish.
Former President Donald Trump had loudly promoted a Monday night interview with Musk that was set to stream on X. However, much like the disastrous X-hosted launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign, the Musk-Trump interview failed to take off, leaving social media users amused by their collective incompetence.
Since Vice President Kamala Harris secured the top spot on the Democratic presidential ticket last month, Trump’s reelection campaign has struggled. His juvenile attacks on her have fallen flat. His racist remarks about her mixed-race background have alienated all but his most devoted followers. Meanwhile, his vice-presidential choice, JD Vance, becomes increasingly unappealing every time he speaks."
Strangely, Trump's response was to sit down with Musk and engage with an extremely online audience that doesn’t reflect the broader electorate. Even if the conversation had gone smoothly, it would have still been an odd and mostly pointless move in Trump's attempt to counter Harris' growing momentum."
Trump's interview with Elon Musk turned into a complete fiasco. The online event quickly derailed, causing X users to react with either frustration or laughter as the planned start time came and went without anything happening. It took over 40 minutes before the interview finally began and could be heard by anyone. It was a display of amateurism, exactly what a campaign desperate to show competence did not need
"In May 2023, when DeSantis' presidential campaign debuted with a glitch-filled interview with Musk on what was then called Twitter, Trump ridiculed the fiasco, posting on social media: 'Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!'
On behalf of DeSantis, I have to say: HAH!"
Never mind the technical issues; Trump's X interview only deteriorated further when he began speaking.
Trump blames AI: Trump claimed that Harris' large crowds were due to AI, implying that anything we dislike must be fake
Trump rambled, jumping from crowd sizes to immigration, to President Joe Biden, and anything else that crossed his mind. His speech was slurred, prompting concerns about his health and doing little to dispel growing worries about his age and well-being.
He came across like a confused, racist version of Daffy Duck.
Elon Musk, lacking Barbara Walters' finesse, proved that his interview skills leave much to be desired."
"Musk, on the other hand, displayed the interviewing skills of a spaced-out introvert. He mostly just acted as a cheerleader for Trump, nodding along to every strange comment that tumbled out of his mouth. Occasionally, Musk veered off into the kind of odd right-wing rants you'd expect from someone too wealthy to ever be told to stop talking.
I'm not going to bother quoting anything Trump said during the interview because it was either too absurd to deserve repeating or just the same tired rhetoric he spouts at every rally.
Harris poses a real threat to Trump: I underestimated Kamala Harris, and that's proving to be a significant issue for Donald Trump.
One of Trump's biggest challenges at the moment is that he's become incredibly dull. Build a wall. Drill, baby, drill. Marxist, socialist something-or-other. Harris just recently became Black. It's all just the same old, blah, blah, blah.
"For Trump, sitting down with an eccentric billionaire who isn't widely liked and slurring his way through an interview that barely got off the ground was, as Donald J. Trump himself might say, 'a DISASTER!'
Musk, with his clumsy handling of social media and inflated ego, made DeSantis look foolish—and now he’s done the same to Trump.
Honestly, if Musk keeps this up, I might actually start to like him."