Trump to be interviewed by supporter Elon Musk on X

Donald Trump will be interviewed Monday live on X by its billionaire owner Elon Musk — an influential supporter — as the Republican ex-president works to reignite online enthusiasm for his sagging White House campaign.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has emerged as a major voice in US politics but is accused of turning the platform formerly known as Twitter into a megaphone for right-wing conspiracy theories.

“This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!” 53-year-old Musk, who has an estimated net worth of $235 billion, posted in a preview of the interview on Sunday.

Trump, 78, posted on X for the first time in more than a year ahead of the interview, sharing a campaign video in which he portrayed himself as the victim of persecution by forces seeking to “destroy” the United States.

Musk is one of President Joe Biden’s fiercest critics, leveraging his 194 million-strong following on X to assail efforts to boost diversity and inclusion — what he calls the “woke mind virus” — and Democrats’ handling of the southern border.

He frequently spreads far-right misinformation about undocumented immigrants and voter fraud.

The conversation is expected to be convivial as the previously rocky relationship between the tech tycoon and the Republican nominee has been transformed, tracking Musk’s rise to hero status among young men aligned with Trump’s views.

It is this audience, which doesn’t watch rallies or tune in to conservative cable news, that Trump will woo as he seeks to stop Kamala Harris’s stunning rise in the polls since she replaced Biden as the Democratic candidate.

As part of that attempt, the former president hosted internet influencer Adin Ross — who has been repeatedly banned from streaming site Twitch for “hateful conduct” and other policy violations — at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida last week.

– Full endorsement –
Musk endorsed Trump last month just minutes after the Republican narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a rally.

But they have not always seen eye to eye.

The tech billionaire has been a US citizen for more than 20 years and has disclosed that he used to vote Democratic before turning against Biden, who is pro-union and did not invite the Tesla owner to a 2021 electric vehicle summit.

The company is facing multiple federal investigations, giving Musk common cause with Trump, who faces more than a dozen felony charges over his efforts to overturn the result of the 2020 election.

When Musk bought Twitter in 2022 he lifted the ban on the former president’s account. But he also endorsed Trump’s Republican rival, Ron DeSantis, hosting a glitch-ridden campaign launch on the platform.

He has since become increasingly focused on priorities shared by the Republican hard right, voicing anger over supposed censorship of conservatives and spreading inflammatory and false news stories about immigration.

– Misleading claims –
Commenting on the recent riots in Britain, Musk claimed that “civil war is inevitable” and shared a false post about “detainment camps.”

New analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows that Musk’s false or misleading claims about the US elections have been viewed nearly 1.2 billion times on X.

Trump and Musk pair met privately in March and have since become closer, according to The Wall Street Journal, holding regular phone conversations.

Musk resigned from two White House business councils in 2017 after Trump withdrew the United States from the Paris climate agreement but the ex-president has been mulling a new advisory role for tech mogul, the paper said.

“I respect Elon a lot. He respects me,” Trump told reporters last week. “He loves the concept of this country but, like me, he says this country is in big trouble, it’s in tremendous danger.”