Tech billionaire Elon Musk will sit down with former President Donald Trump this evening, August 12, for a chat. Musk has endorsed Trump and is taking an active role in getting the GOP message out to voters. The X guy is also the most-followed person on his platform, with over 193 million followers. To say this will draw even more attention to the Trump campaign would be an understatement.
Trump was unceremoniously dumped from the platform in 2021 following the January 6 incident at the Capitol, prompting the ousted president to launch Truth Social to get his message out. Shortly after purchasing Twitter, Musk reinstated number 45's account.
The tech entrepreneur’s endorsement came the day Trump was almost assassinated during the Butler, PA, rally. "Elon called me, as you know, he endorsed me full-throated, a great endorsement,” the former president crowed. “I respect Elon a lot; he respects me. And it's not easy for him to endorse; it takes courage to endorse people. Many people have courage, and many people don't."
Trump pulled a U-turn on his dislike of electric vehicles as well, declaring: "I'm for electric cars; I have to be because Elon endorsed me very strongly. So, I have no choice." See? Compromise can happen in politics.
Why Should One Interview Have Leftists Crying Foul?
The richest man in the world was once a faithful supporter of the Democratic Party, publicly supporting both Hillary Clinton in 2016 and Joe Biden in 2020. But the ever-evolving platform of what Musk calls the "woke mind virus" broke the X-man.
Now, the question liberal media outlets are asking is whether Musk's involvement is an unfair advantage with his dominant social media platform. Cayce Myers, a professor at the Virginia Tech School of Communication, stated: "What Musk brings to Trump in the interview is a platform audience that is enormous. And so what you have with Musk – who's one of the most followed people on Twitter – if he does this interview and posts it on X, it would be a lot of views, and it's going to outperform typical broadcast or cable interviews."
Elon Musk (Photo by Marc Piasecki/Getty Images)
Myers then hinted at a darker plotline. "We're seeing a kind of an emergence here of a political donor class that is actively engaged in politics in a way that goes beyond just the donations," he offered. "Now they're entering this space where they are advocating for campaigns and even conducting interviews as if they are the media."
Most people seem to get their news these days from social media – whether it’s biased, unbiased, censored, or AI-driven. As every voter can attest, platforms can discriminate and apologize, and folks can still tune in for their daily dose of political news and events and what their high school friends made for dinner.
Musk has backtracked on Trump's claim that he pledged $45 million per month to get the former president elected. He has said this: "I am making some donations to America PAC but at a much lower level, and the key values of the PAC are supporting a meritocracy & individual freedom. Republicans are mostly, but not entirely, on the side of merit & freedom."
Mr. Musk also keeps at arm's length from Trump's campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again." He instead rewires the phrase to suit himself, saying "the intent" of his America PAC "is to promote the principles that made America great in the first place."
But Musk needs Trump. A large part of Musk's empire was built with government assistance. SpaceX has lucrative contracts with NASA. Tesla sells EVs promoting US tax credits, and then there's X. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act protects social media platforms from being held liable for user content.
What Are the Odds Trump Is Kicked Off Again?
What seems to be a budding lifelong money-power-America bromance was not easy to come by. For years, the two men bickered over issues. In 2022, Trump spouted off about Musk's government-granted projects: "When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it's electric cars that don't drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he'd be worthless and tell me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, 'drop to your knees and beg,' and he would have done it," Trump wrote on Truth Social. Musk replied, "I don't hate the man, but it's time for Trump to hang up his hat & sail into the sunset."
Before Musk bought Twitter, as part of a larger censorship campaign that was later revealed to be targeting conservative and libertarian voices, the platform canned Trump over two tweets that they say violated the company's policy against glorification of violence. It seemed a lame argument, and Twitter grumbled that the messages had to be read in the context of broader events, citing specifically, "including to incite violence, as well as in the context of the pattern of behavior from this account in recent weeks."
Tweet number one: "The 75,000,000 great American Patriots who voted for me, AMERICA FIRST, and MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN, will have a GIANT VOICE long into the future. They will not be disrespected or treated unfairly in any way, shape, or form!!!"
It would appear this one was a dog whistle, according to Twitter: "To all of those who have asked, I will not be going to the Inauguration on January 20th."
They decided all on their own that the tweet could be interpreted as Trump saying that the inauguration would be a "safe" target for violence because he would not be attending.
So perhaps the Donald will not say anything that angers his new BFF.
All Hat No Cattle?
A potential193 million folks – a mix of elite media and curiosity seekers – could tune in to the X platform to watch the titans make a plan for America, talk smack about Harris and Walz, or compare golf scores – or whatever it is they end up talking about. It could be eye-opening and meaningful, or maybe this interview will be a nothing burger. Either way, the billionaires playing America-Monopoly with real money will at least be entertaining.
