Tesla CEO and X/Twitter owner Elon Musk has labeled both former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden as “talking puppets” in response to the first presidential debate of the 2024 election cycle.
Benzinga reports that tech mogul Elon Musk weighed in on the recent debate between presumptive nominees Donald Trump and Joe Biden. In a statement that has caught the attention of both political analysts and the general public, Musk dismissed both candidates as mere “talking puppets.”
Musk’s comments came in response to venture capitalist David Sacks, where he stated, “They’re just talking puppets. It was a setup for a switch.”
They’re just talking puppets. It was a setup for a switch.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 28, 2024
This remark is particularly noteworthy given Musk’s previous interactions with both political figures. While he has been openly critical of Biden and his policies, Musk has also revealed that Trump occasionally calls him “out of the blue for no reason,” describing the former president as “very nice” during these calls.
But, Musk and Trump haven’t always been on particularly friendly terms. Breitbart News reported in July of 2022 that Trump criticized Musk for his reliance on government subsidies:
Recalling the billionaire’s visit to the White House during his presidency, Trump said that Musk wanted government subsidies for many of his projects that offered big promises without delivering many rewards. Trump said:
“When Elon Musk came to the White House asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects, whether it’s electric cars that don’t drive long enough, driverless cars that crash, or rocketships to nowhere, without which subsidies he’d be worthless, and telling me how he was a big Trump fan and Republican.”
The former president further said Elon Musk would have dropped to his knees and begged if he had asked him to during that meeting.
“I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” said Trump. “Now Elon should focus on getting himself out of the Twitter mess because he could owe $44 billion for something that’s perhaps worthless. Also, lots of competition for electric cars!”
Musk himself has also criticized President Trump’s social media platform Truth Social:
Elon Musk took to Twitter, the platform he will soon own, to mock Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social. Musk tweeted that Trump’s platform has a “terrible name,” and “should be called Trumpet instead!” Musk’s criticism comes after he pointed out that Truth Social, launched as a Twitter alternative, has passed Twitter on a ranking of “Top Apps” in Apple’s app store.
“Truth Social is currently beating Twitter & TikTok on the Apple Store,” Musk tweeted, sharing a screenshot of the ranking from AppFigures.com, which showed Truth Social ahead of both Twitter and TikTok.
Read more at Benzinga here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.
