In a wide-ranging and somewhat chaotic interview, former President Donald Trump expressed admiration for tech mogul Elon Musk, particularly highlighting his approach to employee management amid workplace disputes.
The two engaged in an audio discussion for nearly two hours on X, previously known as Twitter, starting over 40 minutes late due to a series of technical difficulties following Musk’s acquisition of the platform in late 2022.
During the chat, Musk, who is backing Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign, proposed the creation of a “government efficiency commission” for a potential second Trump term and offered to be part of it. Trump enthusiastically endorsed this idea, particularly praising Musk for how he handles employees.
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“I love it,” Trump exclaimed. “You’re amazing… You just walk in and say, ‘Wanna quit?’ If they go on strike, you’re like, ‘That’s fine, everyone’s out of here.'”
Trump continued to laud Musk, playfully suggesting he would excel on the proposed commission.
The conversation quickly caught the attention of Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign, which wasted no time in sharing a clip of Trump’s comments along with their criticisms of both men. “Trump praises Musk for firing workers striking for better pay and conditions,” they remarked on X.
Harris’s campaign spokesperson, Joseph Costello, later derided Trump and Musk as “self-obsessed billionaires who are out of touch with the middle class, struggling to livestream in 2024.”
Musk attributed the delay in the livestream to a “massive DDoS attack” on X, though many, including cybersecurity experts, expressed doubt about this explanation, pointing out that such attacks usually disrupt entire sites.
Despite these claims, X appeared to function normally aside from the interview’s hosting page.
Trump claimed that Musk had shattered “every record in the book” during the event, with listener numbers peaking between 1 to 1.4 million. However, the reported total of 2.1 million participants post-event doesn’t set any significant records for Trump’s interviews.
It remains unclear when or where the mass firing Trump mentioned occurred, but Musk, who oversees Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and the Boring Company, has faced scrutiny over his labor practices. He has previously suggested penalizing Tesla employees who sought to unionize and his companies’ working conditions have led to actions from the National Labor Relations Board.
Following his acquisition of Twitter, Musk notably laid off about half of the company’s workforce, including individuals who accused him of fostering a right-leaning environment.