Former US President Donald Trump was interviewed by SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Monday, which aired live on X and lasted over two hours. The most awaited interview In it, the two men discussed border issues, the assassination attempt against Trump, and America’s inflation crisis, among others.
Trump claimed US President Joe Biden “probably has no IQ at all”, and called Vice President Kamala Harris his “border czar”. The Republican presidential candidate, who has Musk’s support, also praised the X boss for cost-cutting measures at the social media company.
The conversation, which began after a 40-minute delay, attracted more than 1.3 million users in 45 minutes, with the two repeatedly praising each other. Later, Elon Musk claimed on X that global internet traffic to the interview was 20 million. Viewed over 200 million times.
Here are key quotes from the Trump-Musk interview:
1. Trump praises Elon Musk’s cost-cutting measures: “You’re the best cutter. I mean, I see what you do. You go in, you just say: ‘Do you want to quit?’ They go on strike – I won’t name the company – but they go on strike. And you say: ‘Never mind, you all leave.'”
2. Trump referred to the assassination attempt: “It was a massive blow. It was very, maybe you would say, surreal, but it wasn’t unrealistic. You know, I was saying to somebody, you have instances like this – where you think this is an unrealistic situation. And I never felt that way. I knew right away it was a bullet.”
3. Trump says ‘nuclear alert’ is bigger than global alert: “I think it’s something that’s worth rethinking, but there’s so much regulation that people aren’t able to do it, so, you know, maybe they have to change the name. It’s a tough name. There are some areas, like, when you look at what happened with the rebranded, we have to give it a good name… we’ll name it after you (Elon Musk) or something. There’s a branding problem.”
4. Trump takes aim at Joe Biden while talking about the Russia-Ukraine war: “it chairman [has] Low intelligence, Very low IQ. Well, 30 years ago he had a low IQ. But now he might have no IQ at all. There’s nothing on the board that’s that low.”
5. Trump said Vladimir Putin is a ‘good negotiator’: “You know, Biden did something with Russia. There was no chance of him ever getting in. And when I left, and then, after I left, they started building up big forces on the border with Ukraine, right? And I looked at that, and I thought he was doing that because Putin is a good negotiator. I thought he was doing it to negotiate.”
6. Trump praises Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, Putin: “They are here At the top of your game; They’re tough; they’re smart; they’re ruthless — and they will defend their country.”
7. Trump takes a dig at Kamala Harris, Tim Walz as ‘radical leftists’: “She’s considered much more liberal than Bernie Sanders, she’s a radical leftist. And if she becomes president too quickly, you’re not going to have a country left.”
8. Elon Musk offers to help Trump get re-elected: “I think it would be great to have a government efficiency commission that looks at these things and makes sure that taxpayers’ money, taxpayers’ hard-earned money, is well spent.
9. Trump attacks Kamala Harris over border issues: “Kamala was a dictator on the border, now she’s denying it … she can close the border.” [the border] Right now… she tries to pretend she’s going to do something… she has three and a half years.”
10. Trump reiterates that he will abolish the Department of Education: “Out of 50 [states]I’ll bet 35 countries will do very well and 15 of them or, you know, 20 of them will be as good as Norway. You know, Norway is considered great. You can name them. I mean, they’re great. Some of these countries are very good. But if you go to some of these really well-run states, you know, we have states that don’t know what debt is.”
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