Since Kamala Harris launched her presidential campaign on July 21, Donald Trump has been wandering in the media wilderness, unable to find his way back into the warm glow of pundits’ attention. Even a horrifically racist appearance in front of the National Association of Black Journalists in late July wasn’t enough to put the media back into the outrage-of-the-day groove. Trump has been relegated to the sidelines, fuming about the size of Harris’ crowds.
On Monday night, arguably the biggest investor in getting Trump back into the White House put his $44 billion purchase of Twitter (now X) to work by conducting a more than two-hour “conversation.” As our own Kos noted, the event swiftly spiraled into a disaster plagued by technical glitches and showcasing little more than Trump’s inability to complete a sentence.
On Tuesday morning, Musk was bragging about the level of X activity that the event had generated. What he didn’t note was that a great deal of that activity was mocking Trump and Musk for their feeble performances.
Here’s how major news outlets are covering the conversation:
CNN: Was clear on how the event was an attempt by Musk to throw a lifeline to the foundering Trump, writing, “Tech titan Elon Musk threw open his X platform on Monday night, offering Donald Trump a pipeline free of fact checks for his falsehoods, conspiracy theories and extremism as he tries to slow the rise of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.” Even when Trump predicted that “60 million” immigrants were waiting to invade America if he lost, Musk only agreed.
The Washington Post: Found the event to be “two ideological allies touring the right-wing rhetorical bubble and, like new best friends in fourth grade, scrambling over each other to point out their favorite parts.” You know, where the good parts were repeats of lies Trump has been telling for years.
The Guardian: Pronounced the event “surprisingly dull” and called it “a display of two planet-sized egos, toxic masculinity and breathtaking mendacity” before noting that “Musk and Trump’s banal chatter about subjects such as radioactive vegetables and the defeat of Napoleon” made listeners crave the 40 minutes of “wallpaper music” that had filled an earlier technical delay.
Reuters: Seemed surprised that in an evening “marred by tech issues,” Trump lavished praise on Musk for firing tech workers. “‘You're the greatest cutter,’ Trump said. ‘I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: ‘You want to quit?' They go on strike—I won't mention the name of the company—but they go on strike. And you say: 'That's okay, you're all gone.’”
NPR: Agreed with many outlets in saying that for all its length, there wasn’t much substance. “Former President Donald Trump and billionaire X owner Elon Musk said a lot but made little news in a meandering interview marred by a lengthy technical delay on Monday night,” the outlet wrote.
USA Today: Columnist Rex Huppke called it “an unmitigated disaster” and said that “For a fascism-curious billionaire who loves cuddling up to right-wing loons, Elon Musk sure is good at making right-wing politicians look stupid.”
X: Even Musk’s own platform has a less than flattering comment on the big event. Asked to provide a summary, X’s AI assistant “Grok” said the event’s “engagement was low.” It also noted that those who attended found it “lackluster and dominated by oversized egos.”
Musk blamed the technical issues on a distributed denial-of-service attack—which works by flooding web servers with junk traffic to overwhelm their resources and knock them offline—rather than his having fired almost everyone at X who is technically competent. But as many sources noted, this isn’t the first time this has happened.
Politico: “The swirl of posts about technical difficulties echoed Musk’s previous X Live event with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who launched his Republican presidential primary campaign on an X live interview with Musk. As appeared to happen with Trump’s event, the site’s livestream portal, which is audio only, crashed.”
Which is a good reminder that before Musk threw his support behind Trump, he was all in for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid. And see how well that went?
You don’t have to have Elon-sized dollars to make a big difference in this election. Give $5 to the Harris-Walz campaign today!
On Monday night, arguably the biggest investor in getting Trump back into the White House put his $44 billion purchase of Twitter (now X) to work by conducting a more than two-hour “conversation.” As our own Kos noted, the event swiftly spiraled into a disaster plagued by technical glitches and showcasing little more than Trump’s inability to complete a sentence.
On Tuesday morning, Musk was bragging about the level of X activity that the event had generated. What he didn’t note was that a great deal of that activity was mocking Trump and Musk for their feeble performances.
Here’s how major news outlets are covering the conversation:
CNN: Was clear on how the event was an attempt by Musk to throw a lifeline to the foundering Trump, writing, “Tech titan Elon Musk threw open his X platform on Monday night, offering Donald Trump a pipeline free of fact checks for his falsehoods, conspiracy theories and extremism as he tries to slow the rise of Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.” Even when Trump predicted that “60 million” immigrants were waiting to invade America if he lost, Musk only agreed.
The Washington Post: Found the event to be “two ideological allies touring the right-wing rhetorical bubble and, like new best friends in fourth grade, scrambling over each other to point out their favorite parts.” You know, where the good parts were repeats of lies Trump has been telling for years.
The Guardian: Pronounced the event “surprisingly dull” and called it “a display of two planet-sized egos, toxic masculinity and breathtaking mendacity” before noting that “Musk and Trump’s banal chatter about subjects such as radioactive vegetables and the defeat of Napoleon” made listeners crave the 40 minutes of “wallpaper music” that had filled an earlier technical delay.
Reuters: Seemed surprised that in an evening “marred by tech issues,” Trump lavished praise on Musk for firing tech workers. “‘You're the greatest cutter,’ Trump said. ‘I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: ‘You want to quit?' They go on strike—I won't mention the name of the company—but they go on strike. And you say: 'That's okay, you're all gone.’”
NPR: Agreed with many outlets in saying that for all its length, there wasn’t much substance. “Former President Donald Trump and billionaire X owner Elon Musk said a lot but made little news in a meandering interview marred by a lengthy technical delay on Monday night,” the outlet wrote.
USA Today: Columnist Rex Huppke called it “an unmitigated disaster” and said that “For a fascism-curious billionaire who loves cuddling up to right-wing loons, Elon Musk sure is good at making right-wing politicians look stupid.”
X: Even Musk’s own platform has a less than flattering comment on the big event. Asked to provide a summary, X’s AI assistant “Grok” said the event’s “engagement was low.” It also noted that those who attended found it “lackluster and dominated by oversized egos.”
Musk blamed the technical issues on a distributed denial-of-service attack—which works by flooding web servers with junk traffic to overwhelm their resources and knock them offline—rather than his having fired almost everyone at X who is technically competent. But as many sources noted, this isn’t the first time this has happened.
Politico: “The swirl of posts about technical difficulties echoed Musk’s previous X Live event with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who launched his Republican presidential primary campaign on an X live interview with Musk. As appeared to happen with Trump’s event, the site’s livestream portal, which is audio only, crashed.”
Which is a good reminder that before Musk threw his support behind Trump, he was all in for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential bid. And see how well that went?
You don’t have to have Elon-sized dollars to make a big difference in this election. Give $5 to the Harris-Walz campaign today!