Key points from Trump and Musk's two-hour live conversation
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The news: Former US president Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk hosted a live conversation on Musk's social media platform X, where the pair discussed a wide range of issues surrounding the upcoming US election.
The numbers: More than 1.3 million people were tuned in to listen to the pair speak about 90 minutes into the conversation, according to a live counter on X.
The context: The conversation, announced last week, was delayed by more than 40 minutes due to technical issues Musk attributed to a denial-of-service attack.
Trump and Musk discussed various topics, including last month’s assassination attempt on the former president, immigration, national security, electric vehicles, climate change and the economy.
The live-streamed conversation came as Trump works to inject momentum into his presidential campaign following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the race and Kamala Harris’ rise to the top of the Democratic Party ticket.
Musk, a self-professed “moderate” who has supported Democratic candidates in the past, endorsed Trump immediately following July’s assassination attempt, when Thomas Matthew Crooks fired shots at a rally near Butler, Pennsylvania, killing one attendee and wounding several others, including Trump.
What they said: Musk was effusive in his praise for Trump as he said: “I think we’re at a fork in the road of destiny of civilisation and I think we need to take the right path. And I think you’re the right path".
Musk made an offer to serve a Trump administration in a hypothetical "efficiency commission" tackling government overspending, saying: “I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and and just ensures that the taxpayer money, the taxpayers’ hard-earned money, is spent in a good way... I’d be happy to help out on such a commission".
Trump also signalled support for longtime conservative policy fixations like the abolition of the US Department of Education, as part of an effort to “move education back to the states”.
The two men discussed climate change, with Trump arguing that "nuclear warming" — meaning the threat of nuclear war — “is the biggest threat" when compared to climate change. Musk pushed back and suggested that greenhouse emissions were an issue, but said "it’s not like the house is on fire", and said oil and gas workers should not be "demonised".
The former president offered plenty of attacks on Harris, saying: “She is considered more liberal, by far, than Bernie Sanders, She’s a radical left lunatic. And if she’s going to be a president, very quickly, you’re not going to have a country anymore".
The source: X livestream
