After the delay, Trump speaks on Platform X with his supporter Musk
In the conversation, followed by over a million users, Trump repeatedly returned to a favorite topic - his relationships with power figures like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Under his presidency, the US would be safer, he continued.
The 78-year-old also advocated for the construction of a missile defense system modeled after Israel's Iron Dome. "We will have the best Iron Dome in the world," Trump said.
Moreover, the Republican downplayed the threat of global warming. "The greatest threat is not global warming, where the sea level will rise by an eighth of an inch in the next 400 years," he said. "You'll have more beachfront property, right?" Trump asked. The greatest threat is nuclear warming. There are five countries that are significant nuclear powers.
Trump labeled US President Joe Biden's withdrawal from the race for the White House as a "coup." The 81-year-old Biden had, after weeks of debate over his mental fitness for a second term, announced his withdrawal from the presidential election in November. Kamala Harris has since been nominated as the new Democratic presidential candidate.
Trump had the opportunity to reiterate his campaign themes during the conversation. He received no contradiction from Musk - in fact, the 78-year-old even received support for his claims.
Trump supporter Musk reaffirmed his support for the Republican and even offered his cooperation in a possible Trump administration. "I think it would be great to have a commission for government efficiency that looks into these things and ensures that taxpayer money is spent wisely," he said. "I would be happy to serve on such a commission."
On immigration, the tech billionaire said people were flooding into the US and described the border situation as a "zombie apocalypse." It's not possible for the United States to take in all the people of the earth, Musk added.
Trump was the path to prosperity, US Vice President Harris was the opposite, Musk said. "I believe we are at a turning point in the fate of civilization and I believe we must take the right path," he emphasized. "And I think you are the right path."
Musk had previously announced that the conversation would be conducted in an "improvised" manner and that the range of topics would be unlimited. "So it should be highly entertaining!" he wrote. For Republican Trump, who had recently been on the defensive in his presidential campaign against his rival Harris and her Democratic Party, the conversation was intended to give his faltering campaign a boost.
However, the start of the conversation was rocky. Musk wrote on his platform, previously known as Twitter, that there seemed to have been a "massive" cyberattack. The conversation could only begin after more than 40 minutes of delay.
Trump had been banned from the platform Twitter after the Capitol storming by his supporters on January 6, 2021. Musk, however, reactivated the former president's account after his takeover in 2022.
Musk has increasingly shifted politically to the right in recent years, allowing the unfiltered spread of far-right conspiracy theories and rhetoric on X. Experts also say that Musk himself spreads a multitude of false information about the U.S. elections on his own account, gaining massive attention with these misleading posts.
In the midst of discussing various topics, Trump stated, "I'm not going to engage in a war of words with Joe Biden." Later, Musk echoed Trump's sentiment, stating, "I'm not here to debate politics, I'm here to discuss editing the Constitution and improving governance."
