Ideas Guys and Business Guys

Trump's Conversation with Elon Musk

A DDoS and over a million people tuning in later, President Donald Trump had made his return to Twitter to jump on Spaces and speak with Elon Musk. Mr. Musk, who has endorsed Trump for president and has donated millions of dollars for his electoral success, spoke with him for over two hours on a variety of topics, from nuclear war, to immigration, to crime, to environmentalism. For many who had awaited their “return of the King” moment, Trump’s Twitter Space was exactly that.

The full recording goes for about three hours even, but the meat of the conversation starts about 54 minutes in, as there were attacks and heavy loads on the systems. Once all of that had finally been smoothed out, the two engaged in conversation over the world, the news, and the issues. In the two hours the two men spoke, you were briefly taken out of the news cycle and had a moment to listen to the richest man on Earth talking to someone who is trying to be one of the most powerful men on Earth, about everything from trains to nuclear power.

If Warren G. Harding ran in 1920 on the phrase “Return to Normalcy,” Trump’s certainly the avatar of “normalcy” in 2024 — bewildering, were it not for the insanity of our times. What could be best described as two moderates making sense of a world gone mad, Trump easily steered and let the conversation go to a variety of topics, from major cities’ inability to prosecute criminals, to American energy independence, to the missing-in-action campaign style of Kamala Harris giving us all a callback to Biden’s basement campaign of 2020.

However, he did announce on Twitter his campaign pledge to the American people and the world, a solid list with immigration being at the top (as it should be):

It was a breath of fresh air, even if in a radio show/livestream format, to listen to the leaders of the world and industry speak frankly. There were far fewer insults thrown around than in any previous campaign or rally, and the two interlocutors were more focused on the things that are the bare minimum for keeping civilization afloat. From trains to nuclear power, the autism vote is firmly on the side of Trump. The conversation itself was a reminder that Trump, for all of his faults and flaws, has the capacity to speak past K Street (although he knows how to do business) and speak to the American people. Very few could master this ability so well, and the capacity to speak for an extended period of time extemporaneously is something that both speakers rightly observed to be lacking in both Kamala and Biden.

It was good to hear things straight from the horse’s mouth: to hear Trump speak about mass deportation, destroying the Department of Education, and incentivizing American businesses to stay and build within America. Promises that I have heard before, yes. I have heard all these things before, but from less persuasive and charismatic characters. For better or for worse, these two men are the main characters of history in this present moment. The Lord has appointed them now for their place and role to play, whatever He may will them to be. What Trump certainly does have, however, is a renewed understanding of service to the American people.

The quote below outlines that quite clearly. When people, especially outsiders or partisans, ask in bewilderment how this reality TV businessman could have garnered such a following, I can’t help but simply point to the every rally, every statement he’s made about America. His off-the-cuff remarks speak to an American people so long forgotten by their rulers, betrayed by their representatives, left to die either on the home field or the battlefield.

Trump’s campaign messaging has been about those people, and things have gotten so bad by our wickedness and the system that keeps that foul beast of wickedness afloat that Trump, for all his flaws, is the preferable alternative to the existential crisis before us. I do not see him as Caesar, and Musk is certainly not an authoritarian at all. Will we get these things? Maybe, but I do not know. Tomorrow’s evils are sufficient unto themselves.

This was a conversation between an ideas guy and a business guy, and I certainly know who I’m voting for in November.