Trump, Musk interview: Top business takeaways

Former President Donald Trump joined X.com owner and Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Monday night after what Musk claimed was a "massive DDOS attack" on the platform which caused multiple delays and technical issues for viewers. Trump spent most of the conversation making baseless claims and reiterating talking points from previous rallies. Going into the conversation, shares of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) were on the down trend, and continued their losses on Tuesday morning.

Veda Partners managing partner and director of economic policy research Henrietta Treyz joins Morning Brief to give insight into the conversation and what it means for Trump moving forward.

Treyz comments on a point Trump made in his conversation about how Musk shutting down pushback from previous employees: "You really have to think how that particular soundbite played with union workers. The former president's path to the election runs straight through Pennsylvania, which has an enormous union coalition and presence. And effectively, he's, praising the exact opposite of that".

She continues with another point about potential tax and federal policies Trump would like to implement: "Next year we have to pass a tax bill and extending all of Trump's tax cuts from 2017 is going to cost $4.6 trillion. The one thing that I heard from them last night is that they would eliminate the Department of Education to streamline federal efficiency. When you're trying to offset a $4.6 trillion tax cut extension, eliminating the Department of Education is just not going to do the job. So I think they're going to need to have to spitball a lot more specific policy ideas, most of which will have to include not extending some of those tax cuts. They're just too expensive if you're also going to prioritize efficiency."

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

Tesla, Ceo Elon Musk hosted former President Donald Trump on an ex live stream Monday night.

But the conversation was actually delayed around 40 minutes due to what Musk blamed on a cyber attack on the platform.

Once the conversation got going, former President Trump treated it much like one of his rallies taking jabs at both President Biden and also Vice President Harris.

Here's some of that conversation.

My apologies for the late start.

Uh We unfortunately had a massive uh distributed denial of service attack against uh our servers.

The inflation has killed him.

Food prices are up 5060 even 100% in some cases.

And this, this stupid administration allowed this to happen.

This was a coup of a president of the United States.

He didn't want to leave and he was a horrible president, the worst president in history and one of the reasons he was so bad.

First of all, the Israeli attack would have never happened.

Russia would never have attacked Ukraine and we'd have no inflation.

She's a radical left lunatic and if she's going to be our president very quickly, you're not going to have a country anymore here with reaction we wanna bring in.

Henrietta Trey is the managing partner and Director of Economic Policy Research at Veta Partners.

Thank you so much for being with us here, Henrietta.

So like we just played in that clip there, former President Trump insulting Vice President Harris several times.

Not necessarily a huge surprise but referring to her a third rate as incompetent.

Lots of questions just about the context of this interview and what was discussed.

I'm curious what your big takeaway from this conversation was.

Yeah, it was interesting.

I mean, he definitely treated it more like a campaign rally than any kind of um policy oriented or move back to the center interview, which is what his staff on the campaign is actively hoping for.

At one point, he compared Kamala Harris to Melania Trump calling her beautiful.

So it was definitely meandering.

Um I thought that the biggest takeaway really came from Elon Musk and his indications that he wants to get more involved in federal government policy specifically calling for the formation of a government efficiency coalition and commission, which sounds a lot to me like a deficit commission or the Simpson Bowles Commission.

We had uh several years back and he effectively asked if he could be a part of that and join such a commission.

So I thought of all the new policy developments.

Um that was probably the biggest one last night for Elon Musk.

Yeah, I mean, and as we were considering you know, just the context of this interview as well.

I mean, these are two people who largely need each other and need each other's platform to continue to get their message out.

At least Trump needing Musk's platform right now and Musk needing Trump to a certain extent, if he's to have any influence as well in the future of his own businesses and how well they do.

Um We do know that there were the different glitches and what not one stand out from the conversation was Musk calling for quote government efficiency Commission, which he says could help deal with reducing government spending and, and he pitched himself to help with it.

Uh, we're gonna play this quick clip and we'll get your reaction on the other side.

I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at, at, at these things and, and just ensures that the taxpayer money to the taxpayers hard earn money is spent in a good way.

Um, and, and I, and I, I'd be happy to help out on such a commission.

I'd love it if it were f well, you, you're the greatest cutter.

I mean, I look at what you do.

You walk in and you just say you wanna, they go on strike, they, I won't mention the name of the company but they go on strike and you say that's ok, you're all gone, you're all gone.

So every one of you is gone and you are the greatest.

You would be very good.

Oh, you would love it.

Henrietta.

I want to get your reaction.

Uh, I mean, it seems like we've come a long way from, uh, drain the swamp and political interests and business overlapping.

Yeah.

And I mean, you really have to think how that particular sound by, played with union workers.

Um, the former president's path to the election runs straight through Pennsylvania, which has an enormous union coalition and presence and effectively, he's uh praising the exact opposite of that.

So I have to wonder how the campaign felt about that particular sound bite which I assume democrats will seize on uh and make a lot of hay out of in the coming days.

But what do you think about the fact that he could be part of the administration, have some role in the administration when so many of these policies really drive the success potentially or challenges that we could see specifically for his businesses.

Yeah, exactly.

So, you know, next year we have to pass a tax bill and extending all of Trump's tax cuts from 2017 is going to cost $4.6 trillion.

Um The one thing that I heard from them last night is that they would eliminate the Department of Education to streamline uh federal efficiency when you're trying to offset a $4.6 trillion tax cut extension, eliminating the department of education is just not going to do the job.

So I think they are going to need to have to spitball a lot more specific policy ideas, most of which will have to include not extending some of those tax cuts.

They're just too expensive if you're going to also prioritize efficiency.

Uh Secondarily, I'd say that it's interesting that JD Vance, his vice presidential nominee is on the campaign trail this week talking about expanding the child tax credit to $5000 for families.

Um That is something that is bipartisan Marco Rubio has endorsed that before.

It's obviously a big part of the Democratic bills that have passed in the last four years under Biden.

But this is a $1.2 trillion provision on its own.

So if they're going to talk about efficiency, we really need to um keep the numbers in perspective and make sure that we're having a discussion that's on, on par with one another.

All right, Henry, and I also want to get your take on the Harris camp and the reaction that we heard from vice president Harris and her campaign because we got a statement from the campaign in response to the interview.

And it said in part, quote, that Trump's entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself.

He's se self obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a live stream in the year of 2024.

What do you make of that rhetoric?

And I guess what does that then tell you maybe about the strategy that we'll likely see over the next several weeks surrounding Vice President Harris and her campaign.

Yeah, it's certainly a different campaign than what we saw from either Clinton in 16 or Biden in 2020.

Um, Bakari Sellers has this incredible line, which is when they go low, we go to hell and effectively that is what the Kamala Harris team is getting at here.

I mean, they've held zoom calls that have broken records.

They've generated over $500 million in the less than three weeks that she's been on the campaign trail.

And so it's a mock musk for not being able to get spaces up and running in the same vein as the former Republican presidential candidate, Ron desantis is particularly notable.

So sort of uh hitting him where it hurts, I guess is, is what we should expect from this campaign going forward.

Henrietta, thanks so much for joining us here this morning with some of your key takeaways from that ex chat that took place as uh former president Trump called it Henrietta Trace, who is the managing partner and director of economic Policy Research at VETA partners.

Appreciate the time.

Thank you.