We listened to Musk/Trump so you don't have to: here are the tech highlights

Updated on: August 13, 2024 4:59 AM
Trump Musk X talk
Image by Donald Trump.

The three-hour X chat between Elon Musk and Donald Trump finally gets going after technical glitches – or hackers – held up the much-anticipated livestream Monday night. Cybernews brings you the highs and the lows of the event that almost didn’t happen.

The two controversial talkers wasted no time getting into the thick of it. Trump within the first hour calling “Elon” an "interesting character."

Roughly 70 million users tuned in at some point. The talk eventually kicked off at about 8:30 p.m. Eastern Time after X Spaces wouldn’t load for its scheduled 8:00 p.m. start. (More on that down below).

The two business moguls discussed various subjects, including Vice President and Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, the state of violent crime, local police departments, illegal immigrants, foreign relations, and nation-state adversaries.

Yet, an an hour and half into the talk, Cybernews was still waiting for some grand talk about the issues affecting our readers.

Industry folk hoping to hear some commentary about Big Tech, AI, or election misinformation were surely disappointed.

Even with the mention of an alleged “cyberattack” causing a 'technical snafu' on the social media platform, only small drips and drabs of cyber-related issues made their way into the conversation.

Even more baffling is that the Trump campaign announced it was hacked by Iran after one of its staffers fell victim to a targeted spear-phishing attack this past weekend.

At about 10:10 p.m. Musk finally asked Trump his thoughts on the European Union and an open letter EU digital regulators sent only hours before the interview, warning Musk to tamp down on any disinformation rhetoric.

The missive comes after the British Prime Minister last week slammed Musk for "inflammatory" comments he posted on X about the recent riots happening in the UK over the shocking murder of three children attending a Taylor Swift dance class.

But Trump, who dominated the conversation for the most part with his typical MAGA talking points, began to discuss the US funding of NATO towering over the EU, completely missing Musk’s question.

Using oh-so-colorful language, Musk had responded to the open letter on X, calling it "rude & irresponsible," with a meme that told the EU watchdog to "Take a step back, and literally 'F' your own face."

Ironically, Trump was also chastised Monday for using his own media platform ‘TruthSocial’ to falsely accuse the Harris’ campaign of using artificial intelligence to doctor the number of supporters rallying on a tarmac in Michigan.

Musk attempted to circle back, bringing up the fact that during false attacks on Trump, the former president never tried to shut down the media, unlike the EU, but with no luck.

Transportation, regulation, and inspiration

In the chat’s final half hour, the conversation between Musk and Trump shifted only slightly to include some more techie topics, but overall, not much to report after the three-hours long event.

Still, here are some of the random comments made by the two titans in no particular order, and most paraphrased for clarity.

Trump on AI and energy consumption: AI will require twice the electricity we have now. We will need to build a tremendous amount of electricity to compete with China. We’ll need to produce almost double what we produce now for the whole country.

Musk on transportation: This country needs faster transport. We can solve the traffic problems with tunnels and do things that are exciting and inspiring. China has high-speed rails between their cities. We could do the same with tunnels better than anything else in the world if we can lift regulations.

Trump responds: It’s incredible what you did in Vegas, It’s amazing. Tunnels would be much safer than surface trains. It’s sad. I've seen some of China’s bullet trains. They go unbelievably fast. We don't have anything close in this country. It doesn't make sense.

Note: Musk and his Boring Company are currently in the process of tunneling a super-fast mass transit hyperloop in Las Vegas., which according to a Bloomberg expose from February, is racking up tons of safety violations.

Musk on excess regulation: Hopping on regulation, there is more and more regulation every year, it slows the development of new technologies.

Trump responds: If we can improve the speed of drug approval we can save lives. Right now it takes 12 years to get a product approved. I got it down to 4 years, It takes too long.

Musk responds: Yes, it takes too long. You end up taking years to approve something that could take months and improve people's lives. There has to be an active process of reducing regulations, or eventually, everything becomes illegal or takes forever, and then, as a society, we can't make any progress. EU has more regulations than we do and they can get things on the market faster than the US.

Note: Although he didn't mention it specifically, Musk’s neurotechnology company Neuralink is currently in human trials implanting computer chips into the human brain to hopefully one day allow paraplegics to walk again by translating thought into physical movement. He has run up against issues in the past getting approved by the FDA to conduct the trials.

Musk on political views: I’ve not been very political before. People try to paint me as a far-right guy which is absurd. My track record has been moderate to slightly left. I mean I’m trying to make electric cars…historically I call myself a moderate Democrat. But we are at a critical juncture for the country. America is at a fork in the road.

Trump on Musk: You're into the AI, and that's going to be a beauty. We need incentives for companies to build here, not in other locations, and create jobs. It’s about the American dream. Going to a job that they love, not one they can’t stand. You don't hear about the American dream anymore. You are the American dream. You’re an amazing guy. Incredible job. Great inspiration. November 5th may be the most important day in the history of our country.

Musk on Trump: These are the issues. Most people in America want safe and clean cities and secure borders. People want sensible spending, so we can have a prosperous future and moonshot projects people can get excited about. Move at a reasonable speed to a sustainable energy economy. Here’s to an inspiring and exciting future. That’s why I am endorsing you.

Technical glitch or cyberattack?

The live talk eventually began on X Spaces after technical issues prevented at least 18 million users from joining the stream for about a half hour.

Musk quickly made claims that his social media platform was suffering a DDoS or distributed denial-of-service attack, posting at about 8:19 p.m. No hacktivist group has come forward to claim the attack, leaving Cybernews to assume it was just a technical glitch, as the rest of the X platform also appeared to be operating normally.

Whether it was hacktivists or just too many users trying to tune into the event, at 8:27 p.m., Musk announced the stream would “proceed with the smaller number of concurrent listeners,” promising to post the “unedited audio immediately thereafter.”

Musk, who posted a successful live stream test on the platform in anticipation of the millions of users expected to tune in, noted that “We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today,” – obviously, no match for the 18 million who tried to connect with the stream at 8:00 p.m.

Last May, at the start of a scheduled livestream campaign launch by Florida Governor and Republican Ron DeSantis, Musk had similar issues with X crashing repeatedly for users on Spaces.

Now that Musk, who organized and promoted the conversation on his social media platform X (formally known as Twitter), has officially declared his support for Trump, the cat is out of the bag, so to speak.

In May, Trump publicly hinted that if he wins the presidency come November he would seriously consider offering Musk a role as policy adviser in Oval Office.

For two giants who love to hear themselves talk, it would definitely make for an interesting pair in the White House.

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