In a lengthy and confusing interview, former President Donald Trump praised tech billionaire Elon Musk for allegedly firing his employees if they complained about their working conditions.
Elon Musk and Donald Trump participated in a nearly two-hour audio chat Monday night on X, formerly Twitter. The discussion, which touched on a multitude of topics, began more than 40 minutes late due to a series of technical issues on the social media platform that Musk bought in late 2022.
Elon Musk, who has endorsed Donald Trump for president in 2024, at one point mentioned his desire for a possible second Trump administration to form a “commission on government efficiency,” which he volunteered to serve on. The former president went on to praise Musk for his stewardship of employees.
Apu Gomes; Stephen Maturen
“I love it,” Trump said. “You guys are the best… I mean, I watch what you do. You come in and you just say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike, I won’t mention the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone… Every single one of you is gone.’”
“You’re the best!” he added after Musk laughed. “You’d be very good [on the proposed commission]. Oh, you would love that.
Newsweek contacted X by email Monday evening for comment.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign quickly seized the opportunity, sharing a clip of the exchange and a comment about X before the interview even ended.
“Trump congratulates billionaire Elon Musk for firing workers who were striking for better pay and working conditions,” the campaign wrote in sharing the clip.
Harris campaign spokesman Joseph Costello later released a statement about the interview, mocking Trump and Musk as “rich self-centered people who will betray the middle class and who won’t be able to host a livestream in 2024.”
Musk claimed the livestream was delayed due to a “massive DDoS attack.” [distributed denial of service] attack on X”. Others, including cybersecurity watchdog NetBlocks, have expressed skepticism about the claim, with some pointing out that DDoS attacks typically affect entire websites.
Aside from the Spaces page where Musk’s Trump interview was hosted on Monday, X otherwise appeared to function without issues during the delay period.
After the interview began, Trump said Musk had broken “all records.” Between 1 million and 1.4 million people tuned in for most parts of the interview, while Spaces said a total of 2.1 million people “tuned in” to the interview after the event ended, numbers that are far from a “record” for a Trump interview.
While it’s unclear when the alleged mass layoffs Trump referred to in the interview took place, or at what company — Musk also controls Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink and the Boring Company — the tech billionaire has come under fire for his labor practices.
Musk has previously threatened to take away employee stock options if Tesla workers organize a union, while working conditions at his companies have prompted actions from the National Labor Relations Board.
Shortly after buying what was then Twitter, Musk fired about half of the social media company’s employees, including at least one employee who accused the billionaire of promoting a right-wing bias.
