Musk’s interview with Trump shows how they put aside their differences

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It certainly wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, not so long ago they didn’t like each other that much.

“I don’t hate the man,” Elon Musk tweeted in July 2022, “but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and ride off into the sunset.”

The Tesla and Space X founder’s comment was prompted by a gross insult from Donald Trump, who called him a liar. Trump accused Musk of lying to him about his vote in the last presidential election.

“Elon is not buying Twitter,” Trump told a crowd at a rally in Alaska.

Musk, of course, bought Twitter a few months later and went on to endorse Trump’s arch-nemesis, Republican Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor even kicked off his presidential campaign with a buggy Twitter Spaces chat.

But in recent months, the relationship between Musk and Trump has not only thawed, but has reached a positively warm and stable level.

On Monday, the two men are expected to have a sit-down in what many are expecting to be a friendly chat. The exact time, format and length are currently unknown, but it seems highly likely that the interview will air on Mr. Musk’s rebranded Channel X.

Both men hope the conversation will reach an audience beyond the hyperactive paying users who dominate today’s X-rated discussions and that it will be free of the technical glitches that bedeviled Mr. DeSantis’ failed campaign.

The relationship between the tech mogul and the Republican candidate has been developing for some time.

From blue to red

Musk, who became a US citizen in 2002, said he voted almost exclusively Democratic for decades.

But he has grown discouraged by President Biden over issues such as unions (Mr. Musk has resisted efforts to organize his autoworkers) and a snub. He was not invited to the 2021 White House summit on electric vehicles, despite Tesla’s status as one of the world’s largest electric vehicle makers.

Under the Biden administration, Musk’s companies have also been the subject of a number of federal investigations into their personnel practices, his acquisition of Twitter and allegations about Tesla’s Autopilot feature.

In November 2023, he told a New York Times reporter that he would no longer vote for Biden, but he stopped short of endorsing Trump, saying, “It’s definitely a tough choice here.”

Musk lifted the ban on the former president’s Twitter account after buying the company.

And perhaps most importantly, during his time in office he has delved into issues that dovetail perfectly with Trump’s campaign: government censorship and prosecution, complaints about the media, opposition to immigration and anger over “woke” ideas.

“He’s an attention-hungry, political chameleon,” said Ryan Broderick, who writes the internet culture newsletter Garbage Day.

According to Mr. Broderick, Mr. Musk’s online posts have changed significantly since a few years ago.

“He was tweeting neoliberal, carefree stuff, pride flags and stuff like that, until about 2018, but then there was quite a change,” he said.

Since taking over Twitter, Musk has become increasingly embroiled in political controversies and spreads inflammatory — and sometimes outright false — information.

Reuters

Trump and Musk meet at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in May 2020

During the recent riots in the UK, he clashed with Prime Minister Keir Starmer, claiming that “civil war is inevitable” and spreading a false message about “detention camps” in the Falkland Islands.

He also believed Trump’s claims – not supported by evidence – that election fraud is widespread in the United States.

An investigation by the Center for Countering Digital Hate, an organization that tried to sue Musk earlier this year in a case that was dismissed, found that Musk has tweeted false or misleading claims about voting behavior 50 times so far this year.

He also regularly communicates with fringe, far-right, and pro-Trump accounts on his own platform, expanding their reach.

Trump’s technology fans

At the same time, his Silicon Valley connections connect him to Trump’s inner circle. Musk was a member of the PayPal mafia, a group of shareholders who made a fortune when the payments processor was bought for $1.5 billion and who later became prolific investors and founders of the company.

PayPal founder Peter Thiel is a prominent Republican who later hired JD Vance at his venture capital firm Mithril Capital Management and then funded his campaign for Ohio Senate with a $10 million donation.

In March, Elon Musk met Donald Trump at his Florida home. A few months later, Elon Musk hosted an “anti-Biden” dinner where Mr Thiel and Mr Rupert Murdoch were among the guests, according to US press reports.

Elon Musk has donated to both Democratic and Republican politicians in the past. But while he says he doesn’t donate directly to a presidential campaign, he recently launched a pro-Trump political action committee, America PAC.

Political action committees have the ability to spend huge sums of money to support candidates and causes, though Musk has said reports that he contributes $45 million a month to the PAC are exaggerated.

Yet his support for Trump was on full display just minutes after the attempted assassination of the former president last month, when he wrote on Twitter: “I fully support President Trump and hope he has a speedy recovery.”

Trump appears to be back in touch with Elon Musk. At a press conference Thursday, he said, “I have a lot of respect for Elon. He has respect for me.”

“Elon loves this country more than anybody I know, he loves the concept of this country, but like me, he says this country is in great trouble, it’s in great danger,” Trump said.

Musk has become a hero to an online group of young, mostly male supporters who may support Trump’s ideas but are reportedly less reliable voters.

It appears that the Trump campaign wants to target this segment of the population.

For example, the former president recently gave an interview to “courageous” podcaster Adin Ross, who has been repeatedly banned from the streaming site Twitch for violating the site’s code of conduct.

“Donald Trump is trying to find a way to boost his campaign,” Broderick said. “He’s a showman and he understands that Elon Musk has similar instincts.”

But he wondered whether the couple would get along in real life.

“I think they’re going to talk to each other and it’s probably not going to do much good,” he said. “And maybe someone will say something crazy.”

The BBC has contacted X and the Trump campaign for comment.

The interview is expected to go live on Monday at 8pm ET (1am BST).

Learn more about the US elections

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