On the evening of August 12, local time, former US President Trump had a live conversation with Tesla CEO Elon Musk on the X platform. This "fusion" of the top figures in politics and business has attracted the attention of tens of millions of users.
Trump has posted several posts for the live broadcast. This is not only his first return to the x platform after three years, but also a good opportunity to build momentum for his election. Other analysts pointed out that this connection reflects Musk’s determination as a business tycoon to further integrate into American politics.
Musk's "show of loyalty"
live broadcast lasted for about 2 hours. The conversation between the two covered many important topics such as technology, economy, and policy. As of the early morning of the 13th local time, X platform showed that tens of millions of users had listened to the live broadcast.
Among them, Musk’s constant echo of Trump’s attitude has attracted attention. He stated that if Trump returns to the White House, he is willing to help the Trump administration reduce federal spending. He suggested setting up a "government efficiency commission" to ensure taxpayers' money is spent wisely, and volunteered to contribute to this decision.
Trump welcomed Musk. He expressed his appreciation for Musk's cost-cutting measures for his company and praised him as "the greatest cost-saver."
During this year’s US election, the relationship between Trump and Musk became even closer. In addition to frequent interactions and overtures on the Internet, Musk also endorsed Trump with practical actions.
According to people familiar with the matter, Musk has threatened to donate $45 million a month to the "American Political Action Committee" (America Pac) that supports Trump. The action committee was only established in June this year and is committed to canvassing votes in "swing states".
This year, Musk continues to top the "Bloomberg Billionaires Index" with a net worth of more than 200 billion US dollars. His business empire spans electric vehicles, aerospace, telecommunications, artificial intelligence and social media.
Not long ago, Musk claimed to be a "political outsider" who would not provide financial support to any candidate. Analysts pointed out that his recent transformation reflects his efforts to accumulate political capital commensurate with his wealth. It was earlier reported that if Trump wins the election, he may repay Musk's support for him by hiring him as a policy adviser.
Musk served on the White House Advisory Council during the Trump administration. But he left the post in a huff following Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement.
Trump "outputs wildly"
In the two-hour dialogue, Trump, as the keynote speaker, output most of the content. The former president's conversation with Musk was criticized as a rehash of his campaign speeches, in which he repeated many of the anecdotes and sentiments he told during the campaign, from recalling the shooting to attacking Democrats.
First, he reiterated his position that he wants to close the Department of Education. Instead, he argued for transferring power back to the states, adding "out of 50 states, I bet 35 would do a good job."
Secondly, he once again attacked many Democrats indiscriminately, including mocking Illinois Governor Pritzker as a "loser", attacking Vice President Harris as "incompetent", and describing President Biden's health status as "close to vegetative”.
In addition, Trump claimed that there are more dangerous enemies "within the country" than Russia or China.
It is worth mentioning that the two people also have differences on some topics, but they will seek common ground while reserving differences in a more "courteous" way.
For example, regarding the surge of immigrants at the southern border of the United States, Musk's views are much milder than Trump's.
Musk believes legal immigration is a good thing and that most illegal border crossers are not bad people. But he pointed out that there needs to be a strict vetting process for immigrants to prevent dangerous people from entering.
Trump, by contrast, has promised to pursue the largest deportations in the nation's history if elected. He also claimed that other countries were sending people from prisons and mental hospitals to the U.S. border, and strongly condemned this behavior.
In addition, Trump, who has long been skeptical of electric vehicles, spoke highly of Tesla's products during the live broadcast, praising its products as great.
But he also reserved his opinion, saying that does not mean everyone should own an electric car.
returns after three years
Trump's first live broadcast of x, which returned after three years, had an episode before it officially started. Due to technical problems, the live broadcast originally scheduled to start at 8 pm was delayed by more than 40 minutes.
As the boss of the x platform, Musk felt a little embarrassed when he switched to the voice call. He said that the x platform seemed to have suffered a large-scale DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack.
During his previous tenure as president, Trump had been an avid user of x (formerly Twitter). However, his account was later banned by the platform due to the riots at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021. The official reason given was that his posts created a "risk of further incitement of violence."
At the end of 2022, after Musk acquired Twitter and renamed it x, he restored Trump's account. However, Trump has only published one mugshot on the platform in 2023, which was his admission photo taken in an Atlanta prison in August last year. During that time, he had been using his self-created social media platform "Truth Social" to express various political views.
The conversation between Trump and Musk comes at a critical moment in the 2024 election - less than three months before Election Day on November 5.
Most polls show Democratic presidential candidate Harris has erased the lead that Trump held for most of the time and is also ahead of Trump in fundraising. The outside world believes that this has brought an impact to the election that Trump and the Republican Party originally seemed to be sure to win.
Therefore, the outside world believes that this live broadcast is "each getting what they need" for Trump and Musk. On the one hand, X, which is struggling with the constant loss of advertisers and users, needs Trump to attract traffic. On the other hand, Trump also needs to build momentum for his election through multiple channels to deal with Harris' strong pursuit.
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