Trump's Controversial Interview with Elon Musk: Attacks on Biden Administration and Claims of Assassination Attempt

Elon Musk Says He's 'Happy To Host Kamala' On X After Trump Interview: Vice President's Team Says It Was In Service Of 'Self-Obsessed Rich Guys Who Will Sell Out The Middle Class'

Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk has invited Vice President Kamala Harris for a discussion on X following his recent interview with former President Donald Trump. What Happened: Musk expressed his willingness to host Harris for a conversation on his social media platform, X, formerly Twitter. "Happy to host Kamala on an X Spaces too," Musk wrote. This came after a much-anticipated interview with Trump, where the two influential figures discussed topics like immigration, nuclear power, President Joe Biden's administration, foreign policy, the former president's stance on electric vehicles, and artificial intelligence. The interview with Trump was delayed by 44 minutes due to a massive what Musk termed as a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack on X, which was subsequently resolved. Harris' presidential campaign's official rapid response page, Kamala HQ, issued an official response to Trump and Musk's interview, calling it "whatever that was." In a statement, Kamala HQ said, "Trump's entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself -- self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024." See Also: Elon Musk's 76-Year-Old Mom Sleeps In Garage Or On The Floor When She Visits Billionaire Son - 'It's Better Than Sleeping With Lions Or Hyenas' Why It Matters: During the interview, Musk and Trump discussed a wide range of topics, including a failed assassination attempt and Harris's no-tax-on-tips policy. The interview drew criticism from Harris's campaign team. The team sent out a fundraising email to supporters, accusing Musk of using his platform to spread Trump's "unhinged and hateful agenda." The email, titled "The two worst people you know are live this evening," criticized Musk's decision to host the interview. Last week, Musk made it clear that his endorsement doesn't imply agreement with all of Trump's actions or statements. "I think people tend to take, say, an endorsement as, well, I agree with everything that person has ever done their entire life 100% wholeheartedly, and that's not going to be true of anyone," Musk said. However, he admired the former president's bravery during an assassination attempt. Read Next: Elon Musk Delays Live Chat With Trump Due To Massive DDOS Attack on X: 'Will Proceed With A Smaller Number Of Live Listeners' Image Via Shutterstock This story was generated using Benzinga Neuro and edited by Kaustubh Bagalkote Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Kamala Harris's Campaign Slams Elon Musk's Interview With Ex-President: 'He Is Using His Purchased Platform ... To Spread Trump's Unhinged And Hateful Agenda'

On Monday, while Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump were engaged in a highly-anticipated conversation, Harris-Walz sent an email to supporters. What Happened: While the interview between Musk and Trump was in progress, the campaign team of Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris and her running mate Tim Walz sent out a fundraising email to its supporters. The email, with the subject line "The two worst people you know are live this evening," accused Musk of using his influential platform to spread Trump's "unhinged and hateful agenda," this was first reported by BBC. In the email, the billionaire was labeled a "lackey" for former President Trump. See Also: Scaramucci: If Kamala Harris Follows Obama Playbook, The Race Is Over: 'Trump People Are Very Worried' "It's not enough that Musk has pledged to donate millions of dollars to help re-elect Trump. He's using his purchased platform -- one of the largest social media sites in the world -- to spread Trump's unhinged and hateful agenda to millions of users," the email read. It also urged supporters to donate $25 to counter Trump's lies. Why It Matters: Prior to the interview, the EU had warned Musk about promoting "harmful content" in his interview with Trump. The EU's commissioner for Internal Market, Thierry Breton, reminded Musk that his social media platform, X, falls under the jurisdiction of the EU's Digital Services Act (DSA), which regulates illegal content and misinformation on major social media platforms. Meanwhile, despite a 44-minute delay due to a Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack on X, the interview attracted over 1.3 million listeners. Trump praised Musk for "breaking every record in the book tonight," suggesting that the demand for the event was overwhelming. During the interview, the duo covered various topics including the failed assassination attempt on Trump, Joe Biden's withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, immigration, inflation, and more. Image via Shutterstock Check This Out: Lawmakers Made Huge Investments This Year. Get Tips On What They Bought And Sold Ahead Of The 2024 Election With Our Easy-to-Use Tool Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Trump and Musk Interview Covers Everything From Failed Assassination Attempt To Kamala Harris's No-Tax-On-Tips Policy: Live Update - Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA)

The highly anticipated interview between Tesla Inc. TSLA CEO Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump was delayed by 44 minutes due to an apparent massive Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack on X, formerly known as Twitter. Despite the disruption, the event reached unprecedented levels, with over 1.3 million listeners tuning in. Trump lauded Musk for "breaking every record in the book tonight," as the overwhelming demand flooded the platform. The Conversation Started With Trump's 'Fight' Response Tesla CEO's first question to the former President was about the Jul. 13 assassination attempt on Trump. He asked Trump about the assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally last month. "I didn't know I had that much blood," Trump said, of the shooting, while also saying it was the "best alternative you could think about" as he wasn't more gravely injured. "If I had not turned my head, we wouldn't have been talking right now," says Trump During the conversation, Trump announced that he is going back to Butler. The former President jokingly said that he'll kick off his next speech in Butler with, "As I was saying..." Musk chimed in, "Before you were rudely interrupted." Trump Attacked VP Kamal Harris's No Tax On Tips Policy During the conversation, the Republican presidential candidate attacked his Democratic opponent saying Vice President Kamala Harris is replicating his no tax on tips policy. He also accused Harris and the government of hiring 88,000 IRS agents to go after waitresses and caddies. Did You Know? Congress Is Making Huge Investments. Get Tips On What They Bought And Sold Ahead Of The 2024 Election With Our Easy-to-Use Tool Former President Attacks Harris On Immigration After Musk repeatedly tried to steer the conversation toward immigration, Trump jumped into the conversation and attacked Harris on the subject. He said Harris has denied being the border czar, but immigrants are entering the U.S. from "all over the world." Musk referred to his own background as a legal immigrant and emphasized the need for streamlining immigration. "Most of the illegal immigrants are hard-working people," said Musk but some are not. "They won't do anything" on immigration said Trump. The ex-president claimed Harris was more incompetent than Biden on immigration. He added saying, "We're going to have to largest deportation in history." During the conversation, Trump also claimed that Harris had never visited the relevant portion of the border. The Tesla CEO also spoke about his visit to the border saying he saw a stream of people coming to the U.S. but most of them "didn't look super friendly." "These countries are getting rid of their non-productive workers," said Trump in response. Trump Addresses Biden's Withdrawal From The 2024 Race Trump once again expressed regret over President Biden's withdrawal, as he had clearly hoped for an election rematch with him. "This was a coup of the President of the United States," stated Trump, referring to Harris taking Biden's place as the Democratic candidate. The Former President Calls For An Iron Dome "We are in a very bad position," Trump said about Ukraine, adding, "A smart president could have stopped that." He warned that the conflict, along with tensions in the Middle East, could lead to World War III. Musk echoed the concern, stating that people "underrate the risk of World War III." He emphasized that a global nuclear war would mean "game over" for humanity. Trump proposed building an Iron Dome to protect the country from such threats, saying, "Why shouldn't we have an Iron Dome? Israel has one." He was referring to Israel's missile defense system, designed to intercept and destroy short-range weapons. Image Via Shutterstock Check This Out: Lawmakers Made Huge Investments This Year. Get Tips On What They Bought And Sold Ahead Of The 2024 Election With Our Easy-to-Use Tool Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of AI tools and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors. Market News and Data brought to you by Benzinga APIs

Trump rambles, slurs his way through Elon Musk interview. It was an unmitigated disaster.

After uncertainty around whether a presidential debate will happen, Donald Trump and Kamala Harris have agreed to meet on Sept. 10. For a fascism-curious billionaire who loves cuddling up to right-wing loons, Elon Musk sure is good at making right-wing politicians look stupid. Former President Donald Trump had loudly trumpeted a planned Monday night interview with Musk that would stream on X. But much like the disastrous X-platformed launch of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' presidential campaign, the Musk/Trump interview failed to launch, leaving social media users laughing at the collective incompetence. Since Vice President Kamala Harris rose to the top of the Democratic presidential ticket last month, Trump's reelection campaign has been flailing. His childish attacks against her aren't working. His racist comments about her mixed-race heritage have repelled all but his most loyal supporters. His vice presidential pick, JD Vance, becomes less likable every time he speaks. So his answer, weirdly, was to sit down with Musk and talk to what would undoubtedly be a very online audience that doesn't represent the broader electorate. Had the conversation gone off without a hitch, it still would have been odd and largely useless for Trump's effort to halt Harris' momentum. Trump's interview with Elon Musk was an unmitigated disaster But the online interview went off (the rails) with a multitude of hitches. X users erupted with either frustration or laughter as the planned start time passed, and nothing could be accessed. It took more than 40 minutes before the interview could start and be heard by anyone. It was amateur hour, the last thing a campaign struggling to project competence needed. In May 2023, when DeSantis' presidential campaign premiered with a glitch-tastic interview with Musk on what was then called Twitter, Trump mocked the debacle, writing on social media: "Wow! The DeSanctus TWITTER launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. WATCH!" On behalf of DeSantis, allow me to say this: HAH! Forget the glitches, Trump's X interview got worse when he started talking Of course, things didn't get better for Trump once the interview was able to proceed. Trump says AI did it: Trump blames Harris' crowds on AI, so let's all assume everything we don't like is fake! He was rambling, babbling on about crowd sizes and immigration and President Joe Biden and whatever else seemed to pass through his mind. He was also badly slurring his words, raising questions about his health, and doing nothing to knock down rising concerns about his age and well-being. He sounded like a disoriented, racist Daffy Duck. Elon Musk is no Barbara Walters - his interview skills stink Musk, meanwhile, has the interviewing skills of a stoned introvert. He did little but cheerlead Trump and agree with every bizarro thing that fell out of his mouth, while occasionally going on the kind of odd right-wing tangents you'd expect from a man too rich to ever be told to pipe down. I'm not going to quote anything Trump said in the interview because it was either too stupid to merit transcription or a mere repetition of the nonsense he spouts at every rally he holds. Harris can beat Trump: I was wrong about Kamala Harris. And that's a huge problem for Donald Trump A big part of Trump's problem right now is he has become almost unbearably boring. Build a wall. Drill, baby, drill. Marxist, socialist something-something. Harris only recently became Black. Blah, blah, blah. Musk gave Trump the same gift he gave Ron DeSantis. Whomp whomp. So for Trump, sitting down with a rich weirdo few people like and slurring his way through an interview that failed to launch was, in the words of one Donald J. Trump, "a DISASTER!" Musk, with his social-media ineptness and unmerited sense of self-importance, made DeSantis look like a fool. And now he's done the same to Trump. Heck, if Musk keeps this up, I might start to like him.

Kamala Harris more incompetent than Biden, Trump tells Elon Musk

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris is a "third-rate phoney candidate" and "more incompetent" than her boss President Joe Biden, her Republican rival in the November election, Donald Trump, has said. In a much-anticipated audio-only interview with billionaire tech magnate Elon Musk on Monday (August 12, 2024) on his social media platform X which was delayed by more than 40 minutes due to technical difficulties, the 78-year-old former President said, "She is a radical left lunatic," as he alleged that "she wants to be more Trump than Trump". Launching a scathing attack on the 59-year-old U.S. Vice President, Mr. Trump described Ms. Harris as a "third-rate phoney candidate." He reiterated his allegation that Mr. Biden being replaced by Harris as a presidential candidate of the Democratic party was a coup. Mr. Musk agreed with the former President and said, "Her behaviour is far left." "She (Ms. Harris) had three and a half years, and by the way, they have another five months that they can do something. But they won't do anything. It's all talk," Mr. Trump said. "She's incompetent, and he (Mr. Biden) is incompetent. And frankly, I think that she's more incompetent than he is, and that's saying something because he's not too good," he said. Mr. Trump would face Ms. Harris in the general elections on November 5. He accused Ms. Harris of having failed miserably on border security as hundreds and thousands of people entered the country illegally. Asserting that he is in favour of legal immigration, Mr. Trump said it is illegal immigration that he is against. "She is such a liar," Mr. Trump alleged on X, previously known as Twitter, on the day when he returned to the social media platform. Over a million people listened to the much-awaited audio-only conversation, which started more than 40 minutes late because of technical issues. "There appears to be a massive DDOS ( distributed denial-of-service) attack on X. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later," Mr. Musk said in a post on X. During the interview, both Mr. Musk and Mr. Trump agreed that the crime rate has increased in the U.S. because of the open border policy of the Biden-Harris Administration. "We're gonna have the largest deportation in the history of this country. And we have no choice," said the former President. Responding to a question from Mr. Musk, Mr. Trump also slammed Mr. Biden's foreign policy and applauded Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "I got along well with them," he said, claiming there would have been no war if he was the president of the United States. Meanwhile, Mr. Musk stressed that people respond to strength and not weakness and said, "We have some really bad people... we have some really bad people, and I say they are more dangerous than Russia and China." The biggest threat, he said, is not climate change but nuclear warming. The conversation between Trump and Musk started with the failed assassination attempt on the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. "It's very much, I say, an act of God. It's a miracle that it happened," Mr. Trump said. Commenting on the country's economy, he said the U.S. is having the worst inflation in 100 years. Mr. Trump accused the Biden-Harris administration of the worsening of the U.S. economy. "We need to reduce our government spending. ... We need, like a government efficiency commission," Mr. Musk said. Mr. Trump also told Mr. Musk, the 53-year-old CEO of Tesla, that he was an "interesting character". During the conversation, Trump described China as a primary competitor in Artificial Intelligence and announced that he would close down the Department of Education and move them to the states. In this, he said he would need Mr. Musk's help. Mr. Trump, who has 88.8 million followers on X, had 10 posts on the social media platform, each of which has been viewed millions of times. Some of his posts had 34 million impressions. His first post, "Are you better off now than you were when I was president? Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We're a nation in decline. Make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again. Make America SAFE again. Make America GREAT Again!" had 25 million impressions. Read Comments

Kamala Harris more incompetent than Biden, Trump tells Elon Musk

Launching a scathing attack on the 59-year-old US Vice President, Trump described Harris as a "third-rate phoney candidate." He reiterated his allegation that Biden being replaced by Harris as a presidential candidate of the Democratic party was a coup. Musk agreed with the former president and said, "Her behaviour is far left." "She (Harris) had three and a half years, and by the way, they have another five months that they can do something. But they won't do anything. It's all talk," Trump said. "She's incompetent, and he (Biden) is incompetent. And frankly, I think that she's more incompetent than he is, and that's saying something because he's not too good," he said. Trump would face Harris in the general elections on November 5. He accused Harris of having failed miserably on border security as hundreds and thousands of people entered the country illegally. Asserting that he is in favour of legal immigration, Trump said it is illegal immigration that he is against. "She is such a liar," Trump alleged on X, previously known as Twitter, on the day when he returned to the social media platform. Over a million people listened to the much-awaited audio-only conversation, which started more than 40 minutes late because of technical issues. "There appears to be a massive DDOS ( distributed denial-of-service) attack on X. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later," Musk said in a post on X. During the interview, both Musk and Trump agreed that the crime rate has increased in the US because of the open border policy of the Biden-Harris Administration. "We're gonna have the largest deportation in the history of this country. And we have no choice," said the former president. Responding to a question from Musk, Trump also slammed Biden's foreign policy and applauded Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. "I got along well with them," he said, claiming there would have been no war if he was the president of the United States. Meanwhile, Musk stressed that people respond to strength and not weakness and said, "We have some really bad people... we have some really bad people, and I say they are more dangerous than Russia and China." The biggest threat, he said, is not climate change but nuclear warming. The conversation between Trump and Musk started with the failed assassination attempt on the former president in Butler, Pennsylvania, on July 13. "It's very much, I say, an act of God. It's a miracle that it happened," Trump said. Commenting on the country's economy, he said the US is having the worst inflation in 100 years. Trump accused the Biden-Harris administration of the worsening of the US economy. "We need to reduce our government spending. ... We need, like a government efficiency commission," Musk said. Trump also told Musk, the 53-year-old CEO of Tesla, that he was an "interesting character". During the conversation, Trump described China as a primary competitor in Artificial Intelligence and announced that he would close down the Department of Education and move them to the states. In this, he said he would need Musk's help. Trump, who has 88.8 million followers on X, had 10 posts on the social media platform, each of which has been viewed millions of times. Some of his posts had 34 million impressions. His first post, "Are you better off now than you were when I was president? Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We're a nation in decline. Make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again. Make America SAFE again. Make America GREAT Again!" had 25 million impressions. PTI LKJ GRS AKJ GRS GRS