It was raw and occasionally tense.
Former TV host Don Lemon’s wide-ranging, testy interview with Elon Musk was released online Monday morning, touching on topics such as politics, particularly the billionaire’s recent meeting with former President Donald J. Trump. Mr. Musk’s reported drug use. Hate speech on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which it now owns; and more.
The interview was meant to be the debut episode of a new talk show in a partnership between Mr Lemon and X, but Mr Musk canceled the deal a day after taping the hour-long interview at Tesla’s headquarters in Austin, Texas . The first episode of “The Don Lemon Show” was streamed on YouTube and posted on Mr. Lemon’s account in X.
In the interview, Mr. Musk said that earlier this month he was having breakfast at an unnamed friend’s house in Florida when Mr. Trump stopped by.
When asked what was discussed, Mr. Musk said that Mr. Trump did most of the talking and that the former president did not ask for money or a donation to his campaign. Mr. Musk also said he would not lend money to Mr. Trump to pay his legal bills.
While Mr Musk said he would not donate to any candidate, he said he would consider endorsing one in the final stages of the race.
“I don’t know yet, I want to make a thoughtful decision before the election,” he said, noting that he is leaning away from President Biden. “I didn’t hide that,” he added.
If Mr. Musk endorses a candidate, he said, he will provide a detailed explanation of his choice.
Elsewhere in the interview, Mr Musk was adamant that he does not abuse drugs and spoke of his prescription for ketamine for a “negative chemical state”.
“If you’ve used too much ketamine, you can’t really get the job done, and I have a lot of work,” he said. He noted that 16-hour days were “normal” for him and that he rarely took weekends off.
Mr Musk appeared visibly annoyed by a direct line of questioning about his appearance of espousing an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory at X.
“I don’t need to answer those questions,” he said. “I don’t have to answer journalists’ questions. Don, the only reason I’m doing this interview is because you’re on Platform X and you asked for it. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be doing this interview.”
Mr Musk also appeared to sidestep questions about whether he had a responsibility to moderate hate speech on the platform and why some posts had not been removed.
“If something is illegal, we will take it down,” Mr. Musk said. “If it’s not illegal, we put our thumb on the scale and become censors.”
The show arrived Monday morning after a heavy push by Mr. Lemon, who teased the interview in several places last week, including on “The View,” in the days after Mr. Musk abruptly canceled his partnership X with the former CNN host.
Before its release, the men had disagreements over how the interview went.
Mr. Lemon he said in a statement last week that his questions were respectful and covered many topics. “We had a good conversation,” Mr. Lemon said. “He clearly felt different. His commitment to a global town square where all questions can be asked and all ideas shared seems to exclude his questions from people like me.”
Mr. Musk, on the other hand, felt differently. In a post on X, Mr Musk said Mr Lemon’s show lacked originality.
“His approach was basically just ‘CNN, but on social media,’ which isn’t working, as evidenced by the fact that CNN is dying,” Mr. Musk wrote.
While X had initially agreed to financially support Mr. Lemon’s show, Mr. Musk’s decision to cancel the partnership blindsided salespeople at X and was the latest self-inflicted business disruption at X in recent months.
In November, Mr. Musk boldly told advertisers not to spend on his platform, using verbiage to turn them away and accusing them of “blackmail” after he appeared to support an anti-Semitic conspiracy theory on X, which Mr. Lemon during Monday’s show. . Mr. Musk’s inflammatory comments caused many companies to halt their X advertising campaigns.
