After overcoming a series of technical glitches, Donald Trump and Elon Musk spent two hours rehashing the same themes Trump brings up at every campaign rally.
Oscar Wilde once described the English country gentleman chasing a fox as “the unspeakable in full pursuit of the uneatable.” Elon Musk’s interview with Donald Trump felt like “the incoherent in full pursuit of the unendurable.”
Their audio conversation on X, broadcast on Monday night, was expectedly a display of enormous egos, toxic masculinity, and staggering falsehoods. More surprisingly, it was also rather dull, akin to listening to two drunks argue about the state of the world for over two hours.
The central message of their discussion was alarmist: if Trump doesn’t win the election and Musk doesn’t become the emperor of the universe, the country is doomed.
Their mundane chatter ranged from radioactive vegetables to Napoleon’s defeat, making one long for the earlier 40 minutes of background music. This period was marred by crippling technical issues, with thousands unable to join the stream. After 18 minutes, Musk announced a “massive” DDoS attack, reminiscent of Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s glitchy campaign launch on X the previous year.
“Wow! The DeSantis TWITTER launch is a DISASTER!” Trump had tweeted then. “His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!”
When the stream finally began, Trump had a different take. “Congratulations on breaking every record in the book,” he said, as over a million listeners tuned in at the start. However, the conversation was far from the confrontational interviews of the past. Musk stated, “No one is themselves in an adversarial interview,” implying the discussion would be unfiltered, though it lacked depth.
Musk began by asking Trump to recount his attempted assassination on July 13, praising his bravery under fire. Trump, who had previously vowed not to discuss it again, was coaxed into sharing more details, including a vague reference to how illegal immigration supposedly saved his life.
The pair continued to lament about immigration, with Musk emphasizing the need for a secure border. Trump resorted to dehumanizing narratives about African migrants, which Musk failed to challenge. Instead, Musk, in his space nerd persona, commented, “It’s just not possible for the United States to absorb everyone from Earth or even a few percent of the rest of Earth.”
It took over 20 minutes before Vice President Kamala Harris was mentioned, dismissed by Trump as a “San Francisco liberal” and criticized with his usual rhetoric. The conversation was largely a repetition of Trump’s standard rally points.
Trump’s sudden praise for electric vehicles, despite his previous climate change denial, seemed insincere, especially as he praised Musk’s achievements. However, he couldn’t resist taking a jab at Musk’s business, calling much of it obsolete, except for tunnels and wheels.
The discussion seemed to satisfy Trump’s goal of appealing to Musk’s young, conservative audience and reassured Musk that X, despite its issues, still holds political significance.
For Musk, the interview was also a rare political intervention, countering accusations of being a far-right figure by emphasizing his environmental efforts and self-identifying as a moderate Democrat.
The conversation dragged on for two hours and five minutes. If these are among the most influential figures on Earth, one might wish for a SpaceX rocket ride to Mars to escape their tedious discourse.
