Did You Listen to the Musk-Trump Discussion?

Last night – after a 30-to-40 minutes delay, Elon Musk and Donald Trump had a long “conversation” on Musk’s social media platform X. They discussed many topics, including illegal immigration, violent crime, dangerous foreign leaders, the toll of high inflation and taxes, and the need to cut government spending and regulations while at the same time encouraging domestic production of oil and natural gas.”

Musk openly endorsed Trump and said that he was voting for him. However, he was a moderate Democrat who enthusiastically supported Barack Obama but voted reluctantly for Biden in 2020. Musk has not always supported Trump, but he “has financially supported a pro-Trump political action committee” for this presidential campaign.

Fred Lucas discussed the following “seven key takeaways from the Trump-Musk discussion” in his article published at The Daily Signal. 

1. ‘Government Efficiency Commission’

“They want the American dream back,” Trump said of Americans at one point, talking about soaring prices for eggs, bacon, milk, and other staples in recent years.

Musk focused a bit on something that hasn’t been considered a strong point for Trump on the Right – reining in government spending.

“Inflation is caused by government overspending,” Musk said, then asked: “Would you agree that we need to take a look at government spending, and have perhaps a government efficiency commission that tries to make the spending sensible so that the country lives within its means, just like a person does.”

Trump responded that the government doesn’t routinely negotiate prices the way businesses do….

Musk pressed again, and this time volunteered his help.

“I think it would be great to just have a government efficiency commission that takes a look at these things and ensures taxpayers’ hard-earned money is spent in a good way,”

Musk said. “I’d be happy to help out on such a commission if it were formed.”

Trump replied, “I’d love it.”

“You, you’re the greatest cutter,” Trump said….

The Kamala Harris HQ responded in a post on X: “Trump praises billionaire Elon Musk for firing workers who were striking for better pray and working conditions.”

2. ‘Made Me More of a Believer.’

Musk began the conversation by asking Trump about the attempted assassination at a July 13 campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

A bullet grazed his right ear, the former president recalled, as he turned slightly to talk about an oversize chart showing illegal immigration numbers during the Trump-Pence administration years with the much higher numbers of the Biden-Harris administration.

“It was a bigger miracle that I was looking directly at the shooter, so [the bullet] hit me at an angle that was far less destructive than any other miracle,” Trump told Musk….

“For those people that don’t believe in God, I think we’ve all got to start thinking about that,” Trump said. “I’m a believer, but it’s made me more of a believer, I think. A lot of great people have said that to me, actually. It was amazing that I happened to be turned at that perfect angle.”

Musk, who endorsed Trump after the attempt to kill him, called him “courageous” Monday night for standing up and pumping his fist after being hit.

3. ‘Illegal Immigration Saved My Life.’

The two talked about the shooting at some length, dwelling on the large chart depicting unlawful border crossings that led Trump to tilt his head in a certain direction.

“Illegal immigration saved my life,” Trump said at one point, prompting laughter from Musk.

Trump regularly campaigns on restoring border security and keeping criminal gangs and drug traffickers from entering the country. The former president also has promised the “largest deportation effort” in history to send home illegal aliens admitted by the Biden-Harris administration….

“I saw an ad from Kamala talking about providing border security,” Trump said. “Where has she been for three and a half years?”

“We’re already overwhelmed, Elon. We’re overwhelmed,” the former president said at another point, speaking of illegal aliens admitted by the Biden-Harris administration.

4. ‘Dragged Him Behind the Barn.’

Later, Musk used the word “shot” in a figurative way in describing how Democrats forced Biden out of the 2024 race, using a metaphor for putting an injured farm animal out of its misery.

“This was a coup of the president of the United States,” Trump said of Biden, then referred to other top Democrats. “He didn’t want to leave and they said, ‘We can do this the nice way or do this hard way.’” …

“I’m not a fan of his, and he was a horrible president, the worst president in history,” Trump said, sounding a familiar theme.

5. ‘Defective Government’

Trump ridiculed the Biden-Harris administration as “defective.”

“We have a defective government. These are defective people,” the 45^th president said.

Later, Trump said that in some ways, the U.S. government has become worse than its enemies.

“We have some really bad people in our government,” Trump said….

6. ‘Iron Dome’ for America

Trump said Biden’s comments have made the world less safe, including the president’s talk of Ukraine joining the NATO alliance even as Russia dug in with its invasion of the former Soviet republic….

“It was so bad the words he was using,” Trump said of Biden. “The stupid threats coming from his stupid face. It could lead to World War III.”

Musk asserted: “People underrate the risk of World War III,” and added, “It’s game over for humanity.” …

Trump brought up an “Iron Dome” for America, using the name of the antimissile system Israel developed as a shield to foil the rocket attacks of its enemies….

7. President’s ‘Vegetable Stage’

“Now Biden is close to vegetable stage, in my opinion,” Trump said bluntly at one point, perhaps alluding to those who argue that Harris should have succeeded Biden as president by now, rather than just replace him on the ballot….

Musk replied, “It’s clearly like we don’t have a president right now.”

Trump added of Harris and her record as vice president, senator, and California attorney general: “And she’s worse than him.”

Gitanjali Poonia, a staff writer for the Deseret News, discussed five highlights from the discussion between Trump and Musk. She indicated that Trump complimented Musk’s “fertile mind” during the end of the discussion. “You and I can talk about rockets, tunnels … and electric cars, so many things and now you’re into the (artificial intelligence), and that’s going to be another beauty.” 

While listening to the conversation, I could see clearly that the two men were both quite intelligent. There are not too many people who could execute such a conversation. Poonia also indicated that “at least 1.1 million” people were listening at one point.

Like Lucas, Poonia also listed the assassination attempt as one of the items of discussion before she went forward with Trump’s thoughts about Musk’s Tesla cars. They were discussing the economy when “Trump said his solution would be to drill for more oil to bring down energy prices.” He then moved the discussion to electric cars that “don’t require too much gasoline” and that are “a great product.”

“But the gasoline, Elon, is the cost of energy, not only gasoline. It’s the cost of heating your house and cooling your house that has to come down,” Trump said.

He later noted, “Even to create your electric car and create the electricity needed for the electric car, fossil fuel is what really creates that at the generating plants. So you sort of can’t get away from it at this moment.” …

When the discussion moved to immigration, Musk suggested that people think about the migrant crisis as “Who do you want on your team? Who do you want on Team America?”

“I’d say, like, probably, most of the illegal immigrants, actually, are good, hard working people. That’s my opinion,” Musk said, adding, “But some are not.” Still, he argued, many are entering the country for the wrong reasons.

This prompted Trump to lay out his agenda. “We’re going to have the largest deportation in the history of this country, and we have no choice.” The former president also said he thinks the number of actual illegal migrant crossings is at least 20 million, much higher than the reported 12 million.

As NBC News reported, Trump categorized migrants as dangerous people 22 separate times. [With all the news stories about illegal migrants raping and killing Americans, we can definitely say that there is a certain number of them who are dangerous people.]

The conversation moved to another topic – the biggest threat to the U.S. Trump does not believe that global warming is the biggest threat to us.

“The ocean is going to rise one 1/8 of an inch over the next 400 years … and you’ll have more oceanfront property, right? … The biggest threat is nuclear warming because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power.”

The last topic of discussion highlighted by Poonia was the discount that Trump negotiated on his Air Force One plane.

Musk said he believes inflation is a product of the government’s overspending, before asking Trump if “we need to take a look” at these spending levels and adjust them to more “sensible” levels.

Trump said he negotiated with Boeing on the price of a new Air Force One. At the time he took office, one of the first documents he was asked to sign was a contract with Boeing for a $5.7 billion plane.

[Trump, after entering the Oval Office, refused to sign the contract and eventually] “got the price reduced by $1.6 billion for the exact same plan, other than we had a nicer paint job,” Trump said….

While listening to the discussion, I gained insight into how Trump’s mind works to solve problems. While discussing electric cars, Trump suggested that the solution to the problem of power could come from putting solar panels on the roof and/or trunk of the cars. He is not into making electric cars, but he thought of a concept that I heard for the first time. Solar panels are not as heavy as electric batteries.