Elon Musk and Donald Trump blame regulation for inflation

The interview was initially delayed on account of technical difficulties, but once it began, it developed right into a wide-ranging discussion covering the assassination attempt on Trump last month, immigration, foreign policy and the economy. At times throughout the interview, Trump gave rambling answers, a lot of which were crammed with falsehoods.

When it got here to the economy, Musk recurrently spoke about out-of-control government spending, which he said led to inflation and high interest costs on government debt. Musk has offered himself several times as a candidate for a “Commission on Government Efficiency” to check government spending.

The commission will “make sure that taxpayers’ money, taxpayers’ hard-earned money, is spent wisely,” Musk said. “And I would love to help with such a commission.” Trump, who often resorted to his usual arguments about the associated fee of living.”

Trump responded positively, telling Musk he would “love” to have him on such a committee. The federal government spent $6.13 trillion in fiscal yr 2022. Trump then turned to his arguments about the associated fee of living.

Musk went on to say that excessive government regulation is another excuse for ongoing inflation. “When you deregulate, you have to put in sensible regulations, because a lot of the regulations are nonsense and lead to extreme costs for no reason,” Musk said.

During the interview, Musk and Trump appeared quite friendly and made jokes and compliments to one another.

Musk recently officially approved Trump, what he said immediately after the failed Assassination against him last month. Since then, reports have surfaced that Musk has used his considerable financial weight behind it the previous president’s re-election campaign. The Musk-backed America PAC pledged hundreds of thousands in support of Trump. Musk is reportedly personally involved in parts of the PAC’s work, which incorporates efforts to mobilize 800,000 low-propensity voters in various swing states. after to Wall Street Journal(Authorities in North Carolina and Michigan are investigating the PAC over allegations that it improperly collected voter data.)

I fully support President Trump and hope for his speedy recovery pic.twitter.com/ZdxkF63EqF

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 13, 2024

Before the previous few years, Musk was relatively uninvolved in politics. Now he’s certainly one of the standard-bearers for Silicon Valley Support by Trump. This in itself is somewhat surprising, provided that the tech industry has historically been considered a bastion of Democratic support. While this remains to be largely the case, the emergence of distinguished figures from the tech industry who’re in Support for Trump is a something New development. Trump’s tech supporters include Musk, harvest by enterprise capitalists comparable to Marc Andreessen, Ben Horowitz, Peter Thiel, Doug Leone and Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale.

Musk’s support for Trump doesn’t fit well together with his business interests as CEO of an electrical vehicle manufacturer. Trump has recurrently been hostile to electric vehicles. He has also mentioned that he plans to End subsidies for electric vehicles that support Tesla’s sales. Although Trump can have modified his mind, he recently said he had “no selection“ but to support electric vehicles because Musk supports it.

During their conversation, Trump praised Tesla, calling it a “great product.”

Musk’s support for Trump grew over time. In 2022, during an appearance at All In Podcast, Musk said that he had voted “overwhelmingly” for the Democrats prior to now. Around this time, his political loyalties began to shift. In the 2022 midterm elections, Musk would run in Support the Republican Party. Nevertheless, he was not yet completely open to Trump.

“I don’t hate the man,” Elon Musk wrote in a social media post in July 2022, “but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail off into the sunset.”

I do not hate the person, but it surely’s time for Trump to hold up his hat and sail off into the sunset.

In addition, Democrats should call off the attack and never allow it to get to the purpose where Trump’s only likelihood of survival is to develop into president again.

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2022

In the identical social media thread, Musk expressed concern about Trump’s age. “Trump would be 82 at the end of his term, which is too old to be the head of government of anything, let alone the United States of America,” Musk wrote.

Trump can be 82 years old at the tip of his term, making him too old to be head of presidency of anything, let alone the United States of America.

If DeSantis runs against Biden in 2024, DeSantis will win easily – he doesn’t even should campaign.

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2022

Ironically, this was the exact same argument that President Joe Biden eventually used out of the race last month. Biden then supported Vice President Kamala Harris, who has since develop into the Democratic candidate. Since then, Trump’s huge lead within the polls has been shrinking. According to a recent poll, Harris is ahead of Trump within the crucial swing states of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

The talks between Musk and Trump reached almost apocalyptic proportions at times, because the two frightened about the potential of world war. “We know of numerous places right now that could end up in World War III,” Trump said.

Musk agreed, stressing what he sees as the associated fee. “The risk of global thermonuclear war is your end game,” he said.

An analogous tone prevailed within the discussion in regards to the economic situation.

The interview, which each Musk and Trump had been heavily promoting, was scheduled to happen at 8 p.m. ET on X Spaces, a feature of the app that enables users to have live conversations. However, people were unable to affix the chatroom to listen in. Users who tried to affix the conversation to listen live were as a substitute met with an error screen telling them the space was “unavailable.”

Halfway through the interview, Musk realized this was the case and tweeted that he believed X was under attack. “There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X,” Musk wrote in a post on X. “We are working to stop it. In a worst-case scenario, we will continue with a smaller number of live listeners and publish the conversation later.”

There appears to be an enormous DDOS attack on 𝕏. We are working to stop it.

In the worst case scenario, we’ll proceed with a smaller variety of live listeners and publish the conversation later.

– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 13 August 2024

DDOS stands for Distributed Denial of Service and is a kind of cyber attack that disrupts the conventional service of a specific website. Assets couldn’t independently confirm whether X had been the victim of a cyberattack.

Musk also said that X Spaces had tested with 8 million listeners the previous Monday.

The technical difficulties in Musk’s Trump interview were paying homage to similar problems faced by Florida Governor Ron DeSantis met when he launched his candidacy for the Republican primaries on the platform in May 2023. About 500,000 people tried to affix X Space at the identical time, causing the positioning’s servers to crash.

The technical glitch throughout the interview resulted in a difficult time for Trump’s presidential campaign, his third overall. He struggled to keep up a disciplined message, much more so than usual, and needed to contend with the rocky performance of his vice presidential candidate, Ohio Senator J.D. Vance. Meanwhile, his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has mobilized her party’s base since taking up as Democratic nominee from President Joe Biden. Democratic voters who would gladly throw their weight behind a candidate who wasn’t Biden have rallied behind Harris and greeted her campaign with considerable enthusiasm. A brand new poll now shows Harris overtakes Trump within the critical battlefield States of Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania, where he had previously led.