Trump hits campaign lines in Elon Musk conversation (2024)

Summary

Republican presidential nominee talked about his political campaign with billionaire ally Elon Musk
The interview on Musk's social media platform X, formerly Twitter, was initially delayed after thousands of users complained they are unable to access the stream
Musk blamed the issues on a "massive" cyber attack on X
Trump returned to X for the first time in nearly a year and shared several campaign videos on Monday
The richest person in the world has endorsed Trump for president and has been involved in fundraising efforts for the Republican
It comes as Trump's rival for the White House, Kamala Harris, has been riding a wave of momentum in US media
Since Joe Biden stepped down as the Democratic nominee, Harris has held a series of large rallies with her running mate Tim Walz
With less than three months until the election on 5 November, both candidates are looking for the next moment that could define their campaigns

Live Reporting

Edited by Brandon Livesay and Emily McGarvey

Is Trump returning to X (Twitter) for good?published at 00:24 British Summer Time 13 August
00:24 BST 13 August
Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent
Donald Trump is back on Twitter - now known as X - and posted a few times today ahead of his Musk interview.
As we know, he was prolific on Twitter in his rise to the White House and during his time in it. “Without Twitter, there would be no Donald Trump presidency” as a political analyst once put it.
So is he back for good?
Musk will want that - as Trump will definitely provide a big boost to the platform, which is now facing competition from other social media sites.
Also, it has also struggled with advertisers. This was made worse after Musk sued an advertising coalition last week, which has now said it’s shutting down.
But Donald Trump has invested in his own platform “Truth Social” - the huge value in it is him, its most famous contributor. The company had warned him that if he stopped using it, it would harm investors. So, the former president is obligated to stick to his platform first.
See Also
Greenberg: Danny Parkins leaving Chicago sports radio for FS1. Who will replace him?Elon Musk’s AI photo tool is generating realistic, fake images of Trump, Harris and Biden | CNN Business How to Use Twitter: Critical Tips for New Users 2024 Guide to X (Twitter) Analytics: Essential Tools and Tips
Shares already dropped last Friday in “Trump Media” and fell a bit again today as he returned to posting on X. However, in a fundraising email this evening, the Trump campaign said he's "back on X… for a short time".
Trump falsely claimed Harris crowd was fakedpublished at 00:16 British Summer Time 13 August
00:16 BST 13 August
Image source, Harris Campaign
Donald Trump has falsely claimed a crowd which gathered to see Vice President Kamala Harris speak in Michigan last week “didn’t exist” and claimed an image showing it was AI generated.
The picture shows a large crowd at the Democratic presidential nominee's rally in Detroit.
Trump said on his Truth Social platform, external that it was a fake and there was “nobody” there waiting for her. However, in multiple other images and videos, some taken by people present but also by TV news teams and agency photographers, you can see a large crowd of people at the event.
BBC Verify contacted the Harris campaign which said the crowd image had not been modified by AI “in any way”.
We also spoke to Prof Hany Farid, a specialist in image analysis at UC Berkeley, who examined the photograph using software designed to detect AI-generated images.
He said “we found no evidence that this image is AI-generated or digitally altered”.
Musk-Trump: Will it move the needle?published at 00:03 British Summer Time 13 August
00:03 BST 13 August
Nomia Iqbal
North America correspondent
There’s no doubt having Elon Musk on his side is a big plus for Donald Trump.
The tech billionaire is hugely influential, especially given he owns X and has the most followers at 193 million.
But talk about flipping: Musk has gone from criticising Trump, to backing Ron DeSantis for the Presidency, to now becoming a full on cheerleader for Trump.
He endorsed Trump fully after the assassination attempt and is funding “America’s PAC” to get him re-elected.
Therefore due to Musk not being impartial at all, there’s an argument that his support for Trump is probably not that useful overall.
This interview won’t challenge the former president much - so the event may be more preaching to the choir, than bringing anyone new on board.
At the very least, Musk will want to avoid a repeat of his platform’s catastrophic tech glitches when he interviewed DeSantis last year.
At the time, Trump made fun of Musk and DeSantis for the failed event.
Politics thrives on X while rivals avoid itpublished at 23:51 British Summer Time 12 August
23:51 BST 12 August
Liv McMahon
Technology reporter
Elon Musk’s interview with Donald Trump tonight hasn't come out of nowhere - it's the latest example of him trying to make X the place people go for politics.
Facebook-owner Meta has notably distanced itself from this, perhaps to avoid a repeat of the scrutiny its platforms faced following elections in the late 2010s.
Instagram actively limits political recommendations from people you don’t follow by default, and its boss Adam Mosseri has previously said, external he believes any extra engagement or revenue from political content simply isn't worth it.
Meanwhile, Musk is using his platform to wade into political issues around the world - from criticising the UK prime minister to feuding with Venezuela’s president.
Twitter has always been beloved by people in politics, mainly for how easy it makes it to get updates to people quickly.
But it’s interesting that while other socials have moved away from keeping people engaged on the app (and exposed to more ads) with sometimes divisive political content, it seems to be key to Musk’s strategy for growing X.
Musk's clash with Keir Starmer over UK riotspublished at 23:42 British Summer Time 12 August
23:42 BST 12 August
Image source, Reuters
UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has become embroiled in a war of words with Elon Musk, after the tech tycoon suggested “civil war is inevitable” following widespread disorder across the UK. Musk also shared, and later deleted, a fake image about "detainment camps" on the Falkland Islands.
The PM’s spokesperson said there was “no justification” for the remarks and that social media companies "can and should be doing" more.
See Also
Twitter is now an Elon Musk company
Starmer also said Musk’s criticism of policing at a disturbance in Birmingham earlier this month was "dangerous", after the billionaire claimed the force was guilty of "two-tier policing".
For context: The disorder in the UK followed the fatal stabbing of three girls in Southport. The violence, in towns and cities across England and in Northern Ireland, has been fuelled by misinformation online, the far-right and anti-immigration sentiment. Read more here.
EU's digital commissioner warns Musk ahead of Trump interviewpublished at 23:36 British Summer Time 12 August
23:36 BST 12 August
The European Union's Digital Commissioner has warned Elon Musk against spreading harmful content when he interviews Donald Trump on his platform X, formerly Twitter.
Thierry Breton posted a letter on X, external urging Musk not to promote hate speech and to respect the laws of the EU, where a third of the platform's users are based.
Musk responded with an obscene meme and wrote "I would never do something so rude and irresponsible!"
In Breton's letter, there is a warning that the platform could face interim measures if it breaches the rules.
Last month, the EU charged X with disrespecting its social media laws.
Trump returns to X ahead of Musk interviewpublished at 23:24 British Summer Time 12 August
23:24 BST 12 August
Image source, Getty Images
Donald Trump has posted to X several times today, his first appearance on the social media site in nearly a year.
The posts include a series of campaign videos and a picture promoting his conversation with Musk this evening, urging viewers to “enjoy” the interview.
“He’s back” began trending as other X users noted Trump’s return.
Trump last appeared on X in August 2023, when he posted a picture of his mug shot from his arrest on election interference charges in Georgia. Before that, the last tweet on his account was from 8 January 2021, when he said he would not be attending President Joe Biden’s inauguration.
That tweet came shortly before Trump was booted off Twitter in the wake of the 6 January Capitol riot. Musk later reinstated Trump’s account after he took over the platform in 2022.
Trump began his own TruthSocial platform in the interim, where he's also been posting attacks on Biden and Kamala Harris today.
Return to the latest post
How Musk went from Democrat donor to Republican voterpublished at 23:10 British Summer Time 12 August
23:10 BST 12 August
Katharine Sharpe
Technology reporter
Musk has undergone something of a political U-turn over the past decade – which can be documented via his own posts on Twitter, now X.
In the past, he openly expressed approval of former presidents Obama, Clinton and JFK - all of them of course Democrats. He donated money to Hilary Clinton, who lost to her Republican rival, Donald Trump, in 2016.
By 2020 though, he was describing himself as voting “reluctantly” for Joe Biden, in his successful bid to replace Trump.
Four years on and his journey to the political right is complete - with Musk saying in July that he “fully endorsed” the man he opposed in 2020. He has suggested however it is the Democrats who have changed rather him - arguing the party he previously supported had been “hijacked by extremists”.
It appears it is not just a matter of political philosophy however - in 2022 he complained on X that leading Democrats had launched “unprovoked attacks against him” and given a “very cold shoulder” to his companies Tesla and SpaceX.
Who is Elon Musk?published at 23:02 British Summer Time 12 August
23:02 BST 12 August
Liv McMahon
Technology reporter
Image source, Getty Images
The 53-year-old billionaire owner of X (formerly Twitter) has had a hand in establishing or growing multiple successful tech firms.
Musk founded a company during the dot com boom that later became PayPal. He’s behind rocket and satellite giant SpaceX, and brain chip firm Neuralink. He also helped found electric vehicle maker Tesla - which he still runs - and ChatGPT-creator OpenAI - which he’s cut ties with.
His investments in and stewardship of these companies has made him one of the world’s richest people, with Bloomberg estimating, external his current net worth to be more than $220bn.
Musk was born in South Africa but is now a passionate US citizen - making America’s constitutional commitment to free speech key to his vision of X as less moderated “global town square”. Others see its reduced content moderation as giving rise to more harmful content.
He said in an X post in April he “will live and die in America”, though added there was “some possibility of dying on Mars”. He believes humans should colonise it for a multiplanetary future.
He has 12 children with three women, including electronic artist Grimes and Neuralink executive Shivon Zilis - saying he’s “doing [his] best” to help with the future "population collapse” he fears low birth rates will cause.
- Read more here
Musk and Trump: A stormy bromancepublished at 22:56 British Summer Time 12 August
22:56 BST 12 August
Mike Wendling
US reporter
Image source, Getty Images
“I don’t hate the man,” Elon Musk tweeted in July 2022, “but it’s time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail into the sunset".
The Tesla and Space X founder's comment was prompted by a profane Donald Trump insult - put simply, he called Musk a liar.
Musk went on to endorse Trump’s Republican arch-rival, Ron DeSantis. The Florida governor even launched his presidential campaign with a glitch-ridden chat on Twitter Spaces.
But over the last few months the relationship between Musk and Trump has not just thawed - it’s reached a positively warm and steady simmer.
But Trump has power, political clout and, like Musk, craves attention. And while Musk may have money - he’s denied reports that he intends to spend $45m (£35m) a month to help elect Trump - perhaps more important is the relatively young, male, extremely online cohort who admire him.
It’s a target market that Trump would like to tap - if he can get them to turn out to vote. Read more here.
Elon Musk to interview Donald Trumppublished at 22:53 British Summer Time 12 August
22:53 BST 12 August
Brandon Livesay
Live page editor
Hello and welcome to our coverage of Donald Trump’s interview with Elon Musk.
The billionaire owner of X, Tesla and SpaceX will be talking with the Republican presidential candidate at 20:00 EDT (01:00 BST).
It will be the latest in a series of interviews Trump has done with non-traditional media, after he sat down with streamer Adin Ross and YouTuber Logan Paul in the past month.
While those two influencers have large audiences, they pale in comparison to Musk - who has more than 193 million followers on X, a social media platform he owns.
We’re not sure what the two will talk about this evening, but Musk has endorsed Trump for president and is involved with fundraising efforts. And he frequently comments on topics Trump campaigns on, particularly what both men call the “woke” agenda.
Stay tuned as we bring you the latest updates and analysis from the interview.