The rambling conversation, which was largely dominated by Trump in the first hour, ranged from the attempt on his life to immigration. It also started about 42 minutes behind schedule due to technical issues.
Here’s how prominent business and political leaders responded to the conversation.
Mark Cuban
Michael Reaves via Getty Images; Joe Raedle via Getty Images
In a post on X, billionaire Mark Cuban asked: “Anyone tracking how much each participant in this Spaces “conversation” is speaking ?”
The use of quotes around “conversation” appeared to reference Musk’s marketing of the Space as a conversation rather than an interview.
“My use of the word conversation is deliberate,” Musk said earlier on Monday, adding: “Nobody is quite themselves in an interview, so it’s hard to understand what they’re really like.”
But Cuban’s question seemed to allude to the fact that Trump spent most of the time during the space talking, with Musk only occasionally speaking up between long, rambling responses from Trump.
In a follow-up post, Cuban wrote, “Aren’t most conversations a little more balanced? Shouldn’t both participants ask the other questions rather than only one asking ?”
Gavin Newsom
Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, who has a strained relationship with Musk, got a jab in at both the X CEO and the GOP nominee.
“Glitchy. Tech issues. Uncomfortable silences. A complete failure to launch. And that’s just the candidate,” Newsom tweeted, along with a screenshot of an error message for the X livestream.
Newsom’s message was a word-for-word quote of what a Trump spokesperson said about the disastrous campaign livestream Gov. Ron DeSantis held on X in May 2023. That livestream was a messy start to DeSantis’ failed presidential campaign and was plagued by long silences, multiple false starts, and repeated crashes.
Aaron Levie
Justin Sullivan/Getty Images
Aaron Levie, the CEO of Box, had a request for Musk during the conversation.
“.@elonmusk please ask him to explain the Hannibal Lecter reference,” Levie said in an X post, referring to Trump’s habit of bringing up the fictional cannibal made famous by the 1991 film, “The Silence of the Lambs,” during his speeches.
Levie later deleted his post.
Mark Pincus
Mark Pincus, the founder of Zynga, the gaming company behind FarmVille, praised the former president during the conversation with Musk.
“Trump is strong in conversation. Hate me for stating truths!” Pincus said in an X post.
But Pincus had harsher words for the Tesla CEO, writing in a second post: “Elon: its like talking to an NPC. We all know thats every time you try to talk to any politician.”
David Sacks
David Sacks, the venture capitalist behind Craft Ventures and former CEO of Yammer, had a simple and positive takeaway from the evening, responding to a post on X asking users to describe Musk and Trump’s conversation in one word.
“Joyful,” Sacks wrote.
Sacks and Musk have previously bonded over shared distrust of Democratic politicians and, at a Hollywood Hills dinner in April, discussed strategies to defeat Biden in the coming election.
He has since hosted a major fundraiser supporting Trump that raised about $12 million.
The Harris campaign
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign hit out at both Musk and the Trump campaign right after the livestream ended in a statement on X.
“Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com,” the statement read.
“Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a live stream in the year 2024,” the campaign added.
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