This set of photos shows former President Donald Trump (left) during a rally at Tahoe Airport in Minden, Nevada, on October 8, 2022, and Elon Musk at Trump on July 12, 2021 Rally in Wilmington, LA.
Associated Press
Elon Musk will interview former President Donald Trump on Monday night on X, the latest collaboration between the two men whose unlikely alliance could become a major factor shaping the final weeks of the presidential campaign.
“It’s unscripted and the subject matter is unlimited, so it should be a lot of fun!” Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, wrote in a post on Sunday X. The event is scheduled for 8pm ET and will be streamed live on X Spaces.
Ahead of the event, Musk plans to conduct “some system scaling testing” to evaluate the X Platform’s streaming capabilities ahead of the event with Trump.
The purpose of these tests is to prevent a repeat of the disastrous incident in May 2023 when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis held a presidential campaign event live on social media platforms. A glitch in the webcast derailed the highly anticipated event.
The Trump interview is Musk’s latest high-profile attempt at a 2024 presidential bid.
Earlier this year, Musk created America PAC, a pro-Trump political action committee that Musk reportedly plans to provide up to $45 million a month. Musk later denied he ever intended to donate that much.
PAC starts Mobilize 800,000 voters to support Trump in a critical swing state. But after a rocky start and high turnover, CNBC reports that the PAC is facing questions from state election officials about its collection and use of voters’ personal information.
While the PAC’s fate is unclear, Monday night’s conversation could provide Trump with a welcome boost at a critical moment for the Republican presidential nominee.
Just three weeks after Vice President Kamala Harris unexpectedly entered the race, the Democrat erased Trump’s polling lead and shifted momentum in a race that once looked like Trump would lose.
Democratic presidential candidate and U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and Democratic vice presidential candidate Minnesota Governor Tim Walz during a campaign event at Girard College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on August 6, 2024 Get on stage together.
Andrew Harnick | Getty Images
A lively press event with Musk could help revitalize Trump’s base.
The opposite may also be true. Trump and Musk are both polarizing figures with complicated relationships to each other and to politics.
As recently as 2022, Musk and Trump were public enemies, trading insults on social media and at political rallies.
“I don’t hate this guy, but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail off into the sunset,” Musk wrote on social media in July 2022.
Two years later, the two seemed to have buried the hatchet.
Musk endorsed Trump in July after an assassination attempt at a rally in Pennsylvania left the former president with a minor gunshot wound to his ear and killed an audience member.
Trump, in turn, appears to have changed his attitude toward Musk. He has even softened his criticism of electric vehicles.
“I love Elon. He’s great,” Trump said at a Bitcoin conference in Nashville last month. “He supports me, and great support and everything else. But not everyone has to have an electric car.”
This is a development story. Please check back for updates.
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