X Lax

The much-hyped ego-stroking session between Elon Musk and Donald Trump on X got off to rough start as technical difficulties delayed the proceedings. Musk claimed there was a DDOS attack on X — but The Verge was told there was not. Of course, with these two in conversation, it makes sense to start off with a falsehood to get the crowd warmed up. I’m guessing the technical difficulties were due to something system administrators refer to as Narcissistic Server Overload.

+ “In eschewing the adversarial interview, Musk and Trump may have re-created the kind of behind-closed-doors conversation that is all too common among certain types of billionaires and other elites. What is remarkable about these conversations isn’t the subject matter itself, but how vapid, predictable, and sycophantic the back-and-forth becomes.” The Atlantic (Gift Article): Elon Musk Throws a Trump Rally. (There’s no point to Trump’s Twitter clone now that Elon Musk has turned X into a Truth Social clone.)

+ I’ve heard many smart people discuss the Climate Change-driven need for nuclear power and the usefulness of rebranding it. I’ve never heard a smart person (or anyone else) tout the use of nuclear power by arguing that the WWII bombing of Japan wasn’t all that bad. Musk: “Hiroshima and Nagasaki were bombed but now they are full cities again.” Trump: “That’s great, that’s great.” Musk: “It is not as scary as people think, basically.” (Can a conversation be radioactive?)

+ David Frum: The Trump Campaign’s ‘Please Shut Up’ Phase. “Meandering, solipsistic, and crushingly boring—the interview was an awful premonition of the rest of Trump’s life should he lose again, in November: wandering the corridors of his clubs, going from table to table, buttonholing the dwindling number of guests, monologuing relentlessly until they squirm away.” (I still can’t believe everyone didn’t squirm away in 2015.)