Billionaire Elon Musk responds to Trump’s vow to tap him up for a White House role if he wins presidential election in November
Billionaire Elon Musk has suggested he will step up to the mark if appointed to a White House role by Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Trump said yesterday if he is elected president in November he would be open to naming the Tesla CEO to a cabinet or advisory role.
‘He’s a very smart guy. I certainly would, if he would do it, I certainly would. He’s a brilliant guy,’ Trump said in an interview with Reuters.
Musk responded to the comments on X today with just five words: ‘I am willing to serve.’
The CEO of X, formerly known as Twitter, also shared a picture of himself standing behind a podium with the words ‘Department Of Government Efficiency’ and ‘D.O.G.E etched onto it.
The sign appears to be a reference to Dogecoin, a joke cryptocurrency that Musk aggressively promoted in 2021 causing its value to soar.
Musk and Trump have already formed an alliance with the Tesla CEO publicly endorsing Trump in the presidential race.
The pair carried out an extraordinary online interview together last week that was beset with problems including a major delay because of a ‘massive’ cyber attack.
The interview was also dominated by listeners noticing that Trump appeared to have a lisp or even slurred his words at points, struggling with words containing ‘s’ sounds.
The interview on X started 45 minutes late after the social media site’s servers were hammered with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.
Once up and running Trump spoke about becoming more religious after the attempt on his life in Pennsylvania on July 13, a shooting that Musk said showed Trump’s courage.
The 45th President of the United States also vowed to build an ‘Iron Dome’ defence system for America like the one used by Israel to intercept missiles.
He then promised he would oversee the largest deportation of illegal immigrants in history if he became president in November, insisting that cities like New York have been ‘overwhelmed’ and that ‘rough people’ including terrorists are entering the US from Mexico.
‘These are people that are in jail for murder and all sorts of things, and they’re releasing them into our country,’ he said.
Mr Musk then urged Americans to vote for the Republican presidential nominee over Kamala Harris, saying that the US is at a ‘crossroads’ and that choosing Trump would be a vote for hope and prosperity.
In return Trump said he had ‘no choice’ but to back electric vehicles ‘because Elon endorsed me very strongly’. Previously he said that EV supporters should ‘rot in hell’.
However, Trump said on Monday that if he is elected he would consider ending a $7,500 tax credit for electric-vehicle purchases.
‘Tax credits and tax incentives are not generally a very good thing,’ Trump told Reuters in an interview after a campaign event in York, Pennsylvania, when asked about the EV credit.
‘I’m not making any final decisions on it,’ he added.
‘I’m a big fan of electric cars, but I’m a fan of gasoline-propelled cars, and also hybrids and whatever else happens to come along.’
