On Monday evening, the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, hosted aspiring dictator Donald Trump for over two hours on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter.
There was no expectation that Monday’s event would be anything other than a love fest. The fascist Musk endorsed Trump’s presidential bid earlier this year and has pledged, and already given, millions of dollars towards his reelection.
During Monday’s call, Musk once again endorsed Trump and called on listeners to vote for him in the upcoming election. Musk claimed that, despite the robust support from venture capitalists, bankers and hedge fund managers, a Kamala Harris administration would be “even further left” than Biden. Musk even insinuated that Harris, the former “top cop” (attorney general) of California, was a secret communist.
“Her dad was a Marxist economist, that’s how she was brought up. ... We are at a fork in the road ... [Trump] is the path to prosperity, and Kamala is the opposite,” Musk said.
Terrified of the growth of opposition to inequality, war and all of the other evils of capitalism among workers and youth, Musk and Trump are working together to cultivate and encourage fascistic tendencies in the United States and internationally. In hosting Trump, Musk, a recipient of billions of dollars in government contracts over the years, is using the platform he purchased in October 2022 to boost Trump and the fascistic MAGA (“Make America Great Again”) movement that has taken over the Republican Party.
Billed as a “conversation” or “interview,” Monday’s filthy spectacle was in reality a digital campaign advertisement. Much of the airtime was dominated by Trump repeating chunks of his reactionary and well-worn stump speech. Musk frequently punctuated Trump’s semi-coherent ramblings with his endorsement, commonly in the form of “yea” or “yes.”
Slated to begin at 8:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time, the X “Space” live-streaming platform was plagued by technical difficulties that delayed the program for over 40 minutes. Opening the interview, Musk claimed, without evidence, that the technical problems were the result of a denial-of-service attack (DDoS). However, The Verge, citing “a source at the company,” confirmed there was no attack, adding that there was a “99 percent” chance Musk was lying.
Musk said the delay in the event demonstrated that “there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say.” “But,” he continued, “I’m honored to have this conversation.”
Once the interview finally began, Musk and Trump discussed their shared right-wing agenda, centered on mass deportations, mass layoffs, tax cuts and deregulation for corporations, the slashing of social spending and increased funding for police departments.
Trump began by recounting last month’s failed assassination attempt against him at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, with Musk pointing out that Trump turned his head as the shooter fired to point to a chart focused on immigration. “It’s a sign you highlighted a serious issue,” Musk said.
Trump proceeded to slander immigrants as criminals and rapists and attack Harris in her supposed capacity as “border czar.” He claimed, and Musk agreed, that the Biden administration allowed “20 million” immigrants, from “jails, prisons, mental asylums ... many terrorists” into the country.
Repeating Trump’s campaign lines back at him, Musk replied that it was “essential to have a secure border.” Comparing immigrants, many of them families fleeing US-backed wars, coups and economic sanctions, to monsters, Musk said, “We don’t have a secure border. It looks like a World War Z zombie apocalypse at times.”
Debuting a new fascist term, an excited Trump agreed and claimed that other countries were sending their “non-productive people.”
Trump continued:
They don’t want to work or whatever, and these countries are getting rid of non-productive people in the caravans in many cases, and they are also getting rid of their murderers and their drug dealers…
Trump’s use of the term “non-productive” is a resurrection of the Nazis’ eugenicist ideology, which empowered Nazi medical officials to kill anyone deemed to be living a “life unworthy of living.” The T-4 (Tiergartenstrasse) Program was initiated by Adolf Hitler in 1939 and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people, paving the way for the Holocaust.
After commiserating over their shared hatred of immigrants, the billionaires turned to the topic of slashing social programs and departments that offer any benefit to the working class. Musk called for the formation of a “government efficiency commission,” on which he offered to serve, to ensure that “the taxpayers’ hard-earned money” was not being wasted.
Trump enthusiastically replied, “I would love it. You, you’re the greatest cutter.” Recounting a story Musk previously told him, Trump said:
I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say, “Do you want to quit? Then go on strike.” I won’t mention the name of the company, but they go on strike and you say, “That’s OK, you are all gone. You are all gone, so everyone one of you is gone.”
Trump said he needed an “Elon Musk,” adding:
I need someone that has a lot of strength and courage and smarts. I want to close the Department of Education, I want to move education back to the states.
As he did in the 2016 election campaign, Trump cynically appealed to broad anti-war sentiment, warning of the danger of nuclear war. Musk grotesquely downplayed the danger, saying at one point, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed, but now they’re like full cities again.”
Trump replied, “Right, that’s great,” whereupon Musk added, “It’s really not something ... it’s not as scary as people think.”
Trump’s re-emergence on X is a response to his declining poll numbers following the replacement of President Joe Biden at the top of the Democratic ticket last month with his Vice President, Kamala Harris. Aided by millions of dollars and fawning coverage in the corporate press, recent polling shows Harris has tied or surpassed Trump in several states Biden was losing, including Arizona, Nevada, Michigan, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.
In the lead-up to the interview, the Trump campaign purchased advertisements on X that were blasted on millions of users’ timelines throughout the day. Prior to speaking with Musk, Trump used his X account to uncork a barrage of tweets and campaign videos.
Musk’s promotion of Trump is a continuation of his transformation of X/Twitter into a right-wing cesspool aimed at cultivating and growing a global fascist movement. In focusing their hatred on immigrants, Trump and Musk are seeking to blame the poorest people on the planet for the problems created by the capitalist system they defend.
Fascism is created and nurtured by the ruling class as a last gasp to stave off socialist revolution. The fight against fascism and the defense of democratic rights—of immigrants and native-born alike—requires the building of an independent movement in the working class against both capitalist parties and the system they defend.
The Socialist Equality Party and its candidates for president and vice president, Joseph Kisohre and Jerry White, are running in the US presidential election to build a mass movement in the working class that will expropriate the obscene and unearned wealth amassed by Musk, Trump and the rest of the financial oligarchy and place multinational corporations and social media platforms, such as X/Twitter, under public ownership and the democratic control of the working class.