The owner of the social media platform X has evolved from a skeptic of former President Donald J. Trump to one of his most influential supporters.
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Elon Musk, who was once skeptical of former President Donald J. Trump’s campaign, has come to embrace it.
Former President Donald J. Trump said on Tuesday that he would be interviewed next week by Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of the social media platform X and a former skeptic who has come to embrace his candidacy.
In a post on his own social media site, Truth Social, Mr. Trump said that their conversation would happen on Monday night and that details would follow.
Representatives for the Trump campaign and for X did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Tuesday.
Last month, about a half-hour after Mr. Trump was wounded in an assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., Mr. Musk, who is also the chief executive of the electric vehicle company Tesla, endorsed his candidacy, breaking from a norm of self-declared neutrality by the leaders of social media platforms.
On the campaign trail, Mr. Trump frequently says that Mr. Musk is a key ally, and while he has mocked the range and high cost of electric vehicles, he has also marveled at the technology.
Mr. Musk’s ties to America PAC, a pro-Trump super PAC, have drawn intense scrutiny. The activities of the group, which had been planning to spend millions over the course of the campaign, have been mired in disarray.
Mr. Trump is not the first Republican presidential candidate of this election cycle to try to tap into the reach of Mr. Musk’s social media platform.
In May 2023, when Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida entered the primary race, a livestream featuring him and Mr. Musk was marred by a series of technical glitches. Mr. Trump and his allies pounced on the mishap as a sign of the state of Mr. DeSantis’s candidacy, which ultimately failed to gain traction. At the time, Donald Trump Jr. wrote a single word on social media: “#DeSaster.”
After the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack, while the company was still known as Twitter and under its previous ownership, Mr. Trump’s account, which he had used to reach tens of millions of followers during his presidency, was permanently suspended. Under Mr. Musk’s ownership, the company reinstated him.
Theodore Schleifer contributed reporting.
Neil Vigdor covers politics for The Times, focusing on voting rights issues and election disinformation. More about Neil Vigdor
See more on: U.S. Politics, 2024 Elections, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Kamala Harris, Ron DeSantis
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Source: nytimes.com
