X is a safe space for the far right.
After an hour of technical difficulties, the result was something of a digital Trump rally—the former president ranting as if on the stump, about the recent attempt on his life, the price of bacon, border security, and “nuclear warming,” with gentle, stammering interjections from Musk. For two men obsessed with spectacle, the conversation violated the first rule of attention-seeking: It was meandering and tedious, lacking drama or friction, and Musk’s door-mat approach meant that Trump was free to filibuster and lie without interruption—offering up the kind of non sequiturs and irrelevant information that bore even his most loyal supporters. When Trump exhausted himself, Musk, cued only by the awkward silence, would offer his agreement and gingerly pivot to a new topic.
The Musk-Trump primetime conversation marked a return for Trump to the platform that played an enormous role in his political rise. From 2015 to 2021, his was the most influential and scrutinized social media account in the free world; it was temporarily banned after the violence of January 6. Musk restored Trump’s account in 2022 after he acquired Twitter—though Trump, or his minions, have rarely posted since then. Trump’s earnest return ought to have been a triumphant moment—not just for him, but for Musk and his platform. Instead, it had the opposite effect, making both men seem small, siloed in their own safe space, and performing for a homefield audience of overly online supporters.
And yet, Musk might have been telling the truth about the conversation in some way. It did offer a glimpse into something real and illuminating: In eschewing the adversarial interview, Musk and Trump may have recreated the kind of behind-closed-doors conversation that is all too common among certain types of billionaires and other elites. What is remarkable about these conversations isn’t the subject matter itself, but how vapid, predictable, and sycophantic the back and forth becomes.
Though Musk began by asking Trump to publicly recount his experience of nearly dying last month, the pair quickly steered the conversation into a greatest-hits album of shared grievances: Immigration, government spending, and the excesses of the left.
