Ex-President vs Tech Billionaire
Trump rails against Musk: “Elon wants to make friends with the absolutely terrible Biden government”
Mad at Elon Musk: Ex-US President Donald Trump
© Andrew Caballero-Reynolds / AFP
Donald Trump is mad at Elon Musk. The Tesla founder gave an interview to Fox News and said something that the ex-president didn’t like at all.
Actually, Donald Trump and Elon Musk are pretty much on the same page. Both don’t think much of the classic media, maintain a friendly relationship with right-wing extremist activists, propagate conservative conspiracy stories and are committed to the fight against Wokeness. And after Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last year, the tech billionaire even lifted the ex-president’s account ban, calling it “morally wrong and just plain stupid” and announcing he would ban users for “lifetime.” generally want to abolish.
This has not led to Trump tweeting again: He wants to stay with his own service Truth Social, “I like it better here,” the Republican commented on Fox News in October about the end of the blockade. Nevertheless, he seemed to like Musk’s step: “I like Elon and wish him luck,” assured Trump. “I hope he succeeds with that.”
Donald Trump lashes out at Twitter and Musk
That seems to have changed now. In a series of posts over the past few hours, Trump shared critical reports about Twitter on Truth Social: “Twitter can’t be saved. It’s time free speech advocates let it die,” read the title of one of the articles, published by conservative online magazine “The Federalist”. Another is captioned, “Twitter will never stop censoring conservatives. It’s broken beyond repair.”
The fact that Trump started on Musk and Twitter is probably due to an interview that the Tesla boss gave to Trump’s TV buddy Tucker Carlson earlier this week. In the conversation, Musk admitted to the right-wing populist star anchorman of Fox News that he did not vote for the incumbent in the 2020 presidential election, but for his democratic challenger.
“I didn’t vote for Donald Trump. In fact, I voted for Biden. I’m not saying I’m a big Biden fan because that would probably be inaccurate,” Musk said. But presidential elections pose a “difficult” decision and he prefers a candidate who is “an ordinary person with common sense and whose values are right in the middle of the country.”
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Shortly after the interview aired, Trump revealed what he thought of Musk’s barely concealed attack on his intellect: “I don’t think Elon Musk voted for Biden, not for a minute! He told me he voted for me , but who knows, and who cares?” the 76-year-old ranted on Truth Social. “Elon is just trying to befriend the absolutely horrible Biden administration because of all the government subsidies he gets and all the permits he needs. His space company, his car company, his battery company, his tunnel company and even Twitter, that ILLEGALLY FBI CONTROLLED NEED GOVERNMENT HELP & ASSISTANCE HE JUST WANTS TO ‘MAKE UP’ AGAIN!”.
This isn’t the first time Trump has claimed that Musk is not telling the truth about his voting behavior. Already in July last year, after the Tesla boss declared via Twitter that he had given his vote to the Republican congressional candidate Mayra Flores and thus voted Republican for the first time, Trump called the 51-year-old a “bullshit artist”, i.e. someone who was louder crap told. After all, Musk personally informed him that he had given him his vote.
It is difficult to find out who is telling the truth and who is lying. According to his statements to Tucker Carlson, it is unlikely that Trump can hope for Musk’s vote in the next presidential election. Incumbent Biden shouldn’t be overly optimistic either, because Musk already has another favorite: Last November, he publicly announced that should he run, he would support Republican governor of Florida Ron DeSantis – Trump’s closest possible intraparty competitor.
Sources: FoxNews, Fox business, donald trump, “The Hills”, “The Independent”, Reuters.