Fresh out of Barnard College with a degree in political science, Riley is learning the ropes as a writer and reporter for GZERO. When she isn’t writing about global politics, you can find her making GZERO’s crossword puzzles, conducting research on American politics, or persisting in her lifelong quest to learn French. Riley spends her time outside of work grilling, dancing, and wearing many hats (both literally and figuratively).
It was billed as the “biggest interview in history,” but for the first 40 minutes, Donald Trump’s X Space with Elon Musk was one of the biggest failures imaginable: silence, with hundreds of thousands of listeners unable to join.
Musk blamed the delay, without evidence, on a DDOS cyberattack and unexpectedly large numbers of listeners. (Skeptics pointed out that a DDOS attack would have brought down all of X, not just a single space.) Trump and his campaign immediately framed the difficulties as further evidence of a conspiracy to silence his voice.
There was little silence in the two hours that followed. Musk began by clarifying that it would not be an “adversarial” interview but rather an opportunity for undecided voters to hear Trump as he is naturally, in conversation.
Throughout the exchange, which topped out around 2 million listeners on X specifically, Trump hit many familiar notes about the threat he says is posed by “radical left” Democrats. He argues they have stoked crime and inflation, opened the borders, weaponized the justice system against him, over-regulated the economy, and presented a weak posture to the world that has encouraged allies and adversaries alike to take advantage, putting us at risk of nuclear war. Had he been president, Trump said, Russia would never have invaded Ukraine.
Trump also showed more of the hand that he’ll play against Kamala Harris – portraying her as too far left for America, while also insulting her intelligence and commenting on her appearance.
Musk’s role was arguably more interesting than Trump’s. While enthusiastically praising Trump or teeing up opportunities for Trump to tout (and in some cases exaggerate or distort) his achievements, the billionaire also struck the pose of a reasonable, common-sense former Democrat, driven to support Trump by the excesses of the current Democratic Party.
That endorsement by Musk, particularly framed in that way, could be the most important upshot of the conversation: One of the world’s richest men, with a vast communication platform at his disposal, has pointedly given both cover and encouragement to MAGA-curious moderates to take the plunge and vote Trump.
The ball is now back in the Harris campaign’s court. As the Democrats prepare for the start of their party convention next week in Chicago, Harris has yet to sit for a press interview or public conversation of her own, but her team had some comments about Trump's interview on X.
“Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com,” Harris' campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement.
“Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.”
Musk, meanwhile, posted early Tuesday that he is "Happy to host Kamala on an X Spaces too."
