Musk’s social media interview could allow Trump to reach an audience other than his loyalists
Billionaire businessman Elon Musk is set to interview Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump on the Musk-owned social media platform X, which Reuters points out could add further surprises to the already tumultuous US presidential election.
The interview, which is scheduled for today at 8 p.m. (Eastern United States time, midnight Greece time), could offer the former president an opportunity to get back into the limelight, at a time when his election campaign is considered to be on the upswing.
His Democratic opponent in the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris, has erased Trump’s lead in the polls and mobilized Democratic voters with a series of combative rallies.
Musk’s social media interview could allow Trump to reach an audience other than the GOP faithful who attend his rallies and watch his Fox News interviews. However, similar events on the said platform have encountered technical problems.
“I’ll be doing some system cleanup tests tonight and tomorrow before the talk,” Musk wrote on his platform, formerly known as Twitter.
The interview will be streamed live from Trump’s official X account, his campaign announced yesterday, Sunday. Trump’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month after Musk bought what was then Twitter. The previous owners of the platform had suspended the former president’s access to it after his followers attacked Congress on January 6, 2021.
Musk, the richest man in the worldhad supported the Democratic president Joe Biden in 2020, but has since turned to the right and supports the Republican after the latter’s assassination attempt in July.
Musk, who heads electric vehicle company Tesla Inc, has also founded a fund-raising organization to support Trump’s election campaign. The political action committee in question is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of the state’s voter-gathering laws.
Trump, who has long been a critic of electric vehicles, changed his stance after the support he received from Musk.
“I’m in favor of electric cars. I must be, because Elon supported me very strongly. So I don’t have a choice,” Trump said during a rally in early August.
United Auto Workers president Sean Fine, who is campaigning for Harris, said Trump had “sold out.”
The Biden administration has worked to popularize electric vehicles through tax breaks and other measures as part of its broader goal of reducing the carbon emissions responsible for climate change.
Republicans in Congress have opposed these subsidies. Senator J. D. Vance, a running mate on Trump’s ballot, argued that Biden’s policy merely subsidizes the wealthy who buy these cars.
Source :Skai
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