Trump’s Interview with Musk: from US Presidential Election to Ukraine and Risks of World War III
A cyberattack on X social network site (formerly Twitter) delayed broadcasts and worried millions of viewers around the world
Donald Trump is back on Twitter. And not just with a simple post, but with a more than a two-hour interview with Elon Musk live on X (formerly Twitter) about the Republican candidate’s return to the next US presidency, on this social platform.
The unprecedented event was postponed due to technical problems, which Musk attributed to a “massive cyberattack” due to “massive resistance” to what the former US president reportedly said. As Musk wrote on Tuesday, August 13, the total number of views of the interview and subsequent discussion has surpassed one billion users worldwide.
Musk is one of Trump’s most loyal supporters, which is why the Tesla owner said at the beginning of the interview: “You have to win for the good of the country.” At the same time, Musk characterized his Democratic rival Kamala Harris as a “leftist, not a moderate” figure; Trump agreed, calling the US vice president “a radical from San Francisco, more leftist than Bernie Sanders” and saying she is “worse than Joe Biden.”
Continuing to talk about Biden dropping out of the presidential race, Trump said: “I’m not a fan of Joe Biden, he’s the worst president in history. But what they did to him was a coup d’état.”
Trump warned of the risk of World War III, finding agreement with Musk, who added: “I think people underestimate the risk.” Both agreed on the need for an American leader who could intimidate and provide a sense of power. In that context, Trump repeated that he “warned Vladimir Putin,” a smart and tough politician, against attacking Ukraine.
“Biden started saying stupid things,” Trump noted, “for example, he said Ukraine could join NATO. Ever since NATO has existed, Russia has always said it would never accept it. And that’s exactly what Biden is saying.”
Trump also criticized the European Union for “taking advantage of the USA” on trade, complaining that “we’re protecting them with NATO” and saying they should pay as much as the United States for the war in Ukraine. Musk recalled receiving a letter from Brussels before the interview, emphasizing attempts at censorship by other countries.
And it didn’t take long for the European Commission to react negatively: hours after Musk’s live interview with Trump on X, Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for Internal Market, wrote a letter to the head of Tesla and former Twitter, calling for immediate action against “the dissemination of content that may incite violence, hatred, and racism,” even “in connection with important political or social events around the world, including debates and interviews in the context of elections.” The EU commissioner urges Musk to “promptly ensure the effectiveness of your systems and report the actions taken to my team.” And if this does not happen, the commission is prepared to impose sanctions if they are justified to protect EU citizens from “serious harm.”
