Trump, Musk interview on X: Was there anything new?

Former President Donald Trump joined X.com owner Elon Musk for a conversation on Monday night, which was delayed due to what Musk claimed was a "massive DDoS attack" on the platform. Trump spent most of the conversation making baseless claims and reiterating talking points from previous rallies. On a post on X, Musk claimed the stream and subsequent discussions had about 1 billion views.

Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman joins Catalysts to break down what this means for Donald Trump and his campaign.

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

This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

We're going to turn now to the latest from the 2024 presidential race, former President Donald Trump's interview on X with Ceo Elon Musk, drawing a lot of years and some critics on Monday Night Musk saying in a post on the platform that the combined viewership on the interview and subsequent discussion by other accounts have other accounts hitting a billion views.

The Jews spoke a lot about their relationship as well as potential positions for the CEO and Trump's cabinet if he gets elected.

Well, I appreciate that, that endorsement meant a lot to me.

Not all endorsements mean that much.

To be honest.

Your endorsement meant a lot.

You're an amazing guy.

You've done an incredible job and a great inspiration to people.

A great inspiration.

I mean, I, I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission.

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

I'd love it if it were f joining us now with more on Trump and Musk's relationship and what it could mean for the election.

We've got our very own.

Rick Newman.

Rick, thanks for joining us to discuss.

I, I want to talk about what we just heard there, Trump also in the interview calling on a cutter referring to his positions on tax policy.

What's your take?

What's your reaction?

I was cringing all over again listening to those couple of snippets.

I mean, this was just two self important guys complimenting each other for two hours, very tiresome frankly as entertainment and it was not very informative.

Trump just went through his usual litany of complaints and lies and you know, just one example, he says all these migrants coming into the United States, they're all being sent here from prisons, insane asylums in Latin America, American countries.

That's not true.

Um So you did hear uh Elon Musk there raise this idea of something he called a government efficiency commission as if nobody has ever thought of that before.

You know, breaking news.

Elon, there have been many so called government efficiency commissions and the answer to the problem of how to rein in all this American debt is not that complicated.

You raise taxes and you cut spending.

Um So I guess Elon thinks that no one was able to figure this out before.

So he'll come in when Trump wins and he'll do it, he'll get the job done.

Um So other than that, I mean, we didn't, didn't really get anything new from uh Trump last night, nothing new in terms of policies and it went on for two hours.

So I'm not sure of those billions of views.

I'm not sure how many people were still sticking around by the time this ended.

Yeah, it was tough to keep my eyes away towards, towards the end of it there, Rick.

I, I was questioning when it was going to end at some point, but it, it also started 45 minutes late after technology snap booze.

I mean, um, you know, what's the problem here guys?

I mean, this never happens when you do a radio or a TV interview.

Um And most of most operations can, can get an interview mounted without 45 minutes of delays.

So sorry, just a personal rant there.

It was a personal rant and I and I was struggling obviously along with thousands and thousands of other people struggling to get on to the live stream for quite some time until they were able to correct the issue, which of course Elon Musk blamed on a cyber attack as well.

But Rick, let's move on to talk about maybe a different thing here of opinion or a difference of opinion between Musk and President Trump.

But this is something that we have talked about time and time again.

But ultimately, what a Trump presidency would mean for Elon Musk, for his business, given the fact that he has a push obviously and a stake here in sustainable energy versus what former president Donald Trump wants to do, which is potentially drill Morris.

Let's hear what that exchange was like, last night I think we want to just move over and, like, and, and if, if, I don't know, 50 to 100 years from now we're, um, yeah, we're, we're, I don't know, mostly, uh, sustainable.

I think that'll probably be ok. People can still have, you know, a stake and they can still drive gasoline cars and this, you know, it's, it's o, it's ok.

It's like, it's not, I don't think we should vilify people for it, but I think we should just, just generally lean in the direction of, of sustainability.

So that was Elon Musk, pushing, pushing back just a bit.

But Rick, my question to you is a Trump presidency.

How detrimental, how worrisome should that be?

Would that be to Elon Musk and his businesses?

Well, there's been an interesting Musk effect on Trump, which is that, um I mean, he has vilified electric vehicles EVs up till now.

Uh and last fall when the United Auto workers were on strike, Trump went to Michigan and said EVs are going to put you all out of jobs.

They're uh they, they don't go far enough.

I mean, he treats them like as if they're toy cars and now all of a sudden at his rallies, he start, he's starting to say, well, maybe evs are ok and that's obviously Elon Musk kind of wish in his year.

Um You know, there's an interesting thing is happening to Tesla, which is uh it was a lot of um you know, people in California who, which is obviously a democratic state that leans very liberal who were um Tesla's early adopters, you know, the people who kind of got this, this company uh uh over the top and helped it become profitable.

And now there's a lot of Tesla regret among those buyers who don't like the fact that Elon Musk has become kind of this, this right wing uh this right wing dude.

So Tesla is kind of in becoming a mega brand if you will.

So that's one thing to watch for the next four years if Trump wins.