Elon Musk’s highly anticipated interview with former President Donald Trump began with a question to Trump about the attack on his rally in Pennsylvania last month.
“I didn’t know I had that much blood,” Trump said of the shooting, adding that it was the “best alternative anyone could have imagined” considering he was not more seriously injured.
“I’m a believer now. I think I believe in God more,” Trump said.
Trump further claimed that he was targeted because of his stance on immigration.
The former president said he would definitely return to Butler, Pennsylvania, in October, where he survived an assassination attempt on July 13.
Musk seemed to humorously suggest that the diagrams that had prompted Trump to change his position shortly before the shooting had actually saved his life.
“I just want to say that I think a lot of people admire your courage in this situation,” Musk said.
In his joking response, Trump said, “Illegal immigration saved my life,” referring to the issue and a chart he was talking about when the shots started flying.
Here Trump’s claims should be mentioned: “In one month, millions of people are coming. And they have five more months.”
In fact, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 7.1 million arrests for illegal border crossings from Mexico between January 2021 and June 2024.
However, these figures only represent arrests, not the number of individuals. Due to asylum restrictions during the pandemic, many people made multiple attempts to cross the border without fear of legal consequences. The actual number of people is therefore lower than the total number of arrests.
Trump’s comments on Joe Biden’s withdrawal
Donald Trump further claimed that Joe Biden was forced to drop out of the race for the US presidency due to a “coup”.
“I beat Biden so badly in the debate that he had to drop out of the race – one of the best debate performances of all time. Biden’s elimination was a coup,” the former president claimed.
Interview between Musk and Trump attracts great attention
The conversation between Musk and Trump has provoked a chilling reaction in Europe. Thierry Breton, a French entrepreneur and EU Commissioner for the Internal Market, expressed concern about the possible “amplification of harmful content” that could result from the broadcast of the interview.
In a letter published on X, Breton called on Musk to ensure that the platform complies with EU regulations, especially the Digital Services Act, which was passed in 2022 to combat disinformation.
In response to Breton’s warning, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung criticized the EU, suggesting it should “mind its own business” instead of interfering in the US presidential election.
Musk endorsed Trump’s candidacy just days after the former president survived an assassination attempt at a rally.
Chat between Trump and Musk on X hit by ‘massive’ cyberattack
Elon Musk’s highly anticipated interview with former President Donald Trump began after a 40-minute delay due to technical issues on X’s Spaces platform.
Eighteen minutes into the interview, which Musk said was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. EDT, it – which was more of an informal conversation with the Republican presidential candidate – was interrupted due to a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack.
“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. We are working to stop it,” Musk wrote on the platform.
Notably, X faced similar problems when Musk interviewed Florida Governor Ron DeSantis about X in May 2023. Musk attributed this to X’s servers being overloaded with traffic.
Despite the mishaps, the interview between Trump and Musk attracted over a million listeners from around the world.
Trump began by congratulating Musk: “You have broken records, you are silencing voices,” he said.
(With contributions from agencies)
