Billionaire Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump chatted for more than two hours in a wide-ranging conversation on Monday night.
“You have definitely got a fertile mind,” Trump said to Musk toward the end of their conversation. “You and I can talk about rockets, tunnels ... and electric cars, so many things and now you’re into the (artificial intelligence), and that’s going to be another beauty.”
The conversation took place during a live stream on Spaces on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Even though Musk conducted tests to reduce the risk of technical difficulties on his platform prior to the stream, the conversation didn’t begin on time as planned.
“Not working,” Sen. Mike Lee said on X when the live stream didn’t start on time. He said the feed would let him in briefly before alerting him it was unavailable. Then “funky hold music,” as Lee described it, played for nearly 30 minutes straight. The GOP senator in another post speculated if the music was “making us all part of a Neuralink experiment,” referring to Musk’s brain technology company. Musk blamed a DDoS, or distributed denial-of-service attack, for the delay.
The stream racked up at least 1.1 million listeners at one point. Here are 5 highlights from the conversation between Musk and Trump.
Trump on the assassination attempt
Trump spoke in detail about the assassination attempt against him at a Pennsylvania rally in July. He said the shooter began firing quickly, which may be why authorities weren’t able to track him down in time. While Trump praised the response from the local police, he said he wondered why he wasn’t told to wait until all suspicions were cleared.
“Oftentimes they’ll say, ‘Sir, could you wait 10 minutes? ... There’s a storm overhead or lightning or something, and that happens often,” Trump said. “This would have been a perfect time for that.”
“You can’t fake bravery like that,” Musk remarked on the moment Trump raised his fist minutes after the bullet pierced his ear.
Trump and Musk joked that “Illegal immigration” saved the former president’s life. They were referring to a chart that displayed data on migrants who entered the country illegally that Trump was pointing to just before shots were fired from the rooftop.
Trump said “the incredible thing is that the chart” was usually on his left side and put up toward the end of his remarks at a rally, but this time, it was on the right and set up right at the beginning, Trump noted, praising the odds.
“For those people that don’t believe in God. I think we got to all start thinking about that,” Trump said. “I’m more of a believer.”
Trump said he plans to go back to Butler, Pennsylvania, where the assassination attempt took place, in October. “We’re all set up, and the people are fantastic in Butler,” Trump said.
What does Trump think of Elon Musk’s Tesla cars?
While talking about the economy, Trump said his solution would be to drill for more oil to bring down energy prices.
“Now, your cars don’t require too much gasoline,” Trump told Musk. “You do make a great product. I have to say, I have to be honest, that doesn’t mean everybody should have an electric car, but these are minor details.”
“But the gasoline, Elon, is the cost of energy, not only gasoline. It’s the cost of heating your house and cooling your house that has to come down,” Trump said.
He later noted, “Even to create your electric car and create the electricity needed for the electric car, fossil fuel is what really creates that at the generating plants. So you sort of can’t get away from it at this moment.”
Trump also remarked on the Vegas Loop that allows Tesla cars to zoom through a tunnel, saying it was “amazing.”
“I took a big glimpse at it, and it’s incredible,” Trump said. “And you could do that all over. You could do that all over.”
Trump on immigration
Musk said there’s one way to think about the migrant crisis at the southern border: “Who do you want on your team? Who do you want on Team America?”
“I’d say, like, probably, most of the illegal immigrants, actually, are good, hard working people. That’s my opinion,” Musk said, adding, “But some are not.” Still, he argued, many are entering the country for the wrong reasons.
This prompted Trump to lay out his agenda. “We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of this country, and we have no choice.” The former president also said he thinks the number of actual illegal migrant crossings is at least 20 million, much higher than the reported 12 million.
As NBC News reported, Trump categorized migrants as dangerous people 22 separate times.
Trump reveals what he thinks is the biggest threat to the U.S.
The former president said he doesn’t think global warming is “the biggest threat” to the U.S.
“The ocean is going to rise one 1/8 of an inch over the next 400 years ... and you’ll have more oceanfront property, right? The biggest threat is not that. The biggest threat is nuclear warming because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power.”
He alleged Biden’s White House deployed a military presence close to the Ukraine border and allowed Ukraine a chance to join NATO. Should he have not made these moves, the war in Russia could have been avoided, Trump argued.
Both Trump and his running mate Sen. J.D Vance, R-Ohio, support an “America First” policy that doesn’t favor spending as much on foreign aid, including aid for Ukraine.
Trump got a discount on his Air Force One plane
Musk said he believes inflation is a product of the government’s overspending, before asking Trump if “we need to take a look” at these spending levels and adjust them to more “sensible” levels.
Trump said he negotiated with Boeing on the price of a new Air Force One. At the time he took office, one of the first documents he was asked to sign was a contract with Boeing for a $5.7 billion plane.
“Now, they’re highly sophisticated, even nicer than your planes,” Trump said, without giving any details. “I said, I’m not going to pay 5.7, I’m not going to do it. I said, Who made the deal? Obama and his people. I said, Well, then I know the deal is no good.”
“I got the price reduced by $1.6 billion for the exact same plane, other than we had a nicer paint job,” Trump said. The former president then praised the billionaire for being “the greatest cutter.”
“I mean, I look at what you do,” Trump said. “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.”