Donald Trump had billed the conversation with Elon Musk as the “interview of the century.”
It was hosted on Musk’s X platform, formerly known as Twitter, bringing together two of the world’s most polarising and controversial men in one of the most divisive social media spaces.
But instead of being a riveting exchange, it began with a technical fiasco. For over 30 minutes X users couldn’t even access the conversation.
There was silence. Then some bland elevator-style music. Then silence again.
Musk blamed the meltdown on a “massive DDOS attack” – meaning a ‘Distributed Denial of Service’ cyber hack. That led to wild rumours of a hostile state interfering or of Democrats disrupting the event.
When the platform’s functionality was finally restored, Musk and Trump chatted like old friends. Musk is giving Trump tens of millions of dollars to help the Republican presidential campaign. So there was no attempt to be objective.
It was a billionaires’ bromance from start to finish.
They discussed the assassination attempt in Pennsylvania, with Musk sounding awe-struck by Trump’s defiance and courage. Trump said he would return to the scene in October and hold another rally, suggesting that he would resume his interrupted speech with the words.
“As I was saying….”
The two men moved on to discuss immigration and inflation. Trump ripped into Kamala Harris’ intellect and spoke of the “coup” against Joe Biden.
In other words, this was vintage Trump. Wild and conspiratorial, he filled the Twitter-sphere, or the X-sphere, with grievances and misinformation. So much for the post-assassination attempt reset.
Trump suggested that if he had won the White House in 2020 then Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine and Hamas wouldn’t have attacked Israel. Trump insisted that Putin, Xi, and Kim Jong-un were all “at the top of their game” and that they only feared him.
There was a winner last night.
The Democrats have gained plenty of ammunition in the form of more bizarre Trump claims.
The Harris campaign’s social media team is already clipping up these soundbites and pushing out viral videos.
If Trump was hoping this would help him regain the political momentum against a surging Kamala Harris, he is likely to be disappointed.
Yes, he will dominate the news cycle. But in all the wrong ways.
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