Former President Donald Trump’s discussion with Elon Musk on X Monday night began about an hour late as the social media platform was littered with technical difficulties before the two were connected for a discussion that covered illegal immigration, the pandemic, and Trump’s rival, VP Kamala Harris.
Listeners who were able to access X Spaces were greeted with hold music for approximately forty minutes. Musk eventually stated on X that the website appeared to be facing “a massive DDOS,” or Distributed Denial of Service attack.
Assassination Attempt
In the end, at about a quarter to 9 p.m. ET, Musk launched the discussion, commending the former president for how he dealt with the assassination attempt on his life at his rally in Steward, Pennsylvania, last month, referencing Trump yelling, “Fight! Fight! Fight!” as Secret Service escorted him off stage.
“When I stood up before the hand, before the, you know, the fist in the air, they didn’t know if I was alive. Nobody did. And when I put the fist up, they were, they were just relieved and happy and thrilled, and the place went crazy,” Trump told Musk as the two discussed the attempt for more than 20 minutes.
Point of Conflict
All through the discussion, Trump pivoted to familiar arguments, including lauding authoritarian leaders, pummeling and calling President Joe Biden names, and deriding immigrants.
During their discussion, one subject of conflict came up between the two – climate change, however, Musk referred to it as “global warming.”
“Nuclear Warming”
Throughout the conversation, Musk argued in favor of environmentally friendly energy sources, while Trump argued in favor of fossil fuels, claiming that he is more concerned about “nuclear warming.”
“I’ve heard, in terms of the fossil fuel, because even to create your electric car and create the electricity needed for the electric car, you know, fossil fuel is what really creates that, at the generating plants,” Trump said after Musk discussed the potential for air to be difficult to breathe in the future.
“Move There Faster Than Slower”
Musk pushed back, telling Trump he wasn’t stating “the house is on fire immediately,” but that “it’s probably better to move there faster than slower … without vilifying the oil and gas industry and without causing hardship in the short term.”
In any case, as he referenced worldwide threats, Trump made a joke that there would be “more oceanfront property” because of rising ocean levels and global temperatures.
Trump’s Claims
Trump stated: “You know, the biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one 1/8 of an inch over the next 400 years, and you’ll have more, you’ll have more oceanfront property, right? The biggest threat is not that.”
“The biggest threat is nuclear warming because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power.”
Harris and the Border
The two men made remarks about Democratic candidate Kamala Harris, with Trump pummeling her over the border, without referencing the fact that he advised the GOP members of the House to tank the recent comprehensive immigration bill that GOP Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford helped spearhead.
“She’s saying she was strong on the border. ‘We’re going to be strong.’ Well, she doesn’t have to say [it]; she could close it up right now. … They could do things right now. It’s horrible,” Trump stated.
“Coup” Allegations
Yet again during the X discussion, Trump stated – without proof – that President Biden exiting the race was a “coup.”
Trump continued to make remarks about Harris all through the discussion, including mentioning her new TIME magazine cover, saying she looked like his wife, Melania Trump. He likewise contended that the VP had gotten a makeover in the media.
Peak Listenership
Trump mispronounced the VP’s name claiming: “She is terrible. She’s terrible, but she’s getting a free ride. I saw a picture of her on TIME magazine today. She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live. It was a drawing and actually looked very much like our great first lady, Melania … She didn’t look like Kamala”
Musk reiterated his support for Trump shortly after Trump praised Musk for the Spaces chat’s audience, which appeared to reach around 1.3 million at its peak.
“Good of the Country”
Musk said: “I think we’re in massive trouble, frankly, with a Kamala administration, and that’s my honest opinion. I think, really, it’s essential that, that you win for the good of the country this election.”
Responding to the conversation, a representative for the Harris campaign labeled the pair as “self-obsessed rich guys.”
DeSantis Launch
The statement from the Harris campaign rep read: “Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com. Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024”
The campaign also made fun of the interview’s 40-minute delay by sharing a previous Trump post on Truth Social that criticized Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch event on X last year, which was also delayed by glitches. This was shared on the Kamala HQ Truth Social account.
“Scaling Issues”
Last May, DeSantis had wanted to start his audio-only campaign launch with Musk, yet rehashed issues and crashes prevented the beginning of the Spaces event for almost 30 minutes, in the wake of alternating stretches of quietness and crackling audio.
The Spaces abruptly ended and then restarted at the same time that Musk and others could be heard talking about the problems behind the scenes.
Musk recommended during the DeSantis campaign launch broadcast that the issues were because of the burden on the platform’s servers and “scaling issues” since his account was involved and had a following of 140 million users at the time.
