Elon Musk defended his stance on diversity and free speech in a tense interview with former CNN anchor Don Lemon.
The Tesla CEO was openly irritated by Lemon’s line of questions during the hour-long video interview, published Monday.
Responding to a question about his ketamine prescription, Musk said: “It’s pretty private to ask someone for a medical prescription. He said he took the drug to treat “a negative chemical state in my brain, like depression.”
Asked if he had abused the drug, which is commonly used as an anesthetic, he replied: “I don’t think so.” If you take too much ketamine, you won’t be able to really work. I have a lot of work.”
Musk, who canceled a deal between his X platform and Lemon after the interview was recorded earlier this month, was asked about his criticism of diversity, equity and inclusion programs (DEI), including its support of a thread on X authored by Ben Shapiro, a conservative. expert, saying the DEI put medical patients at risk.
Lemon told Musk that there was “no evidence” that DEI programs lowered standards of medical practice, prompting the billionaire to say that X users’ interview response would help them ” make their own decision” on the matter.
When asked if he believed in DEI, Musk replied: “I think we should… treat people based on their skills and integrity. »
Musk also defended X’s content moderation standards after Lemon highlighted anti-Semitic and racist posts that were still on the platform, which the Tesla CEO purchased in 2022.
When asked why they had not been removed, Musk indicated that the messages were not illegal and replied: “So, Don, you like censorship, that’s what you say.” Lemon responded that he believed in moderation, to which Musk responded, “Moderation is a propaganda word for censorship.”
If a post was illegal, “we’re going to take it down,” Musk said, adding that if it wasn’t breaking the law, “we put our thumb on the scale or we were censors.”
Musk has made his irritation with Lemon clear on several occasions. The host asked him if he was upset and the entrepreneur replied that “you upset me because the way you word the questions… is not convincing.”
Musk told Lemon that the next Tesla Roadster model would be a collaboration with his company SpaceX and “contain rocket technology.”
He added: “I think the only way to make something cooler than the Cybertruck is to combine SpaceX and Tesla technologies to create something that’s not even really a car.” When asked if it was a flying car, Musk replied: “Maybe.”
Musk also confirmed that he had recently met with Donald Trump, but said he had not donated to his campaign, even though he was “stepping away” from supporting Joe Biden. When asked if he would support a presidential candidate, he replied: “I might, down the stretch, support a candidate, but I don’t know yet.”