Lea Feiger: Then Trump brings up Musk and calls him a really awesome guy. Musk literally jumps in the air on stage, in what was honestly captured in one of the most embarrassing photos I’ve seen online maybe this year, and then Musk talks to the crowd for a couple of minutes. What does it say? Tell us about that.
Vittoria Elliott: It’s a big change from 2020, when there’s all this suspicion around mail-in voting, around early voting. Now all of a sudden we hear, “Make sure you’re registered to vote, vote early, do this, do that, get everyone you know to vote.” There is a very, very big push to get out the vote, and that was where Elon was involved. When the assassin’s bullet grazed Trump’s ear, he stood up and said, “Fight, fight, fight.” And Musk very consciously said, “Vote, vote, vote.” And everyone in the crowd immediately saw that parallel that-
Lea Feiger: I mean, he drew it. Yeah.
Vittoria Elliott: People really liked that, and one of the things Musk said that got a lot of reaction from the people I was directly with was he said, “The second one…”
Elon Musk (archive audio): The Second Amendment is there to ensure that we have the First Amendment.
Vittoria Elliott: I was there to rally the troops, to really talk to the true believers, to push, push, push for voter turnout, because I think my feeling about the way the MAGA movement is right now is that they understand what the Biden’s team understood in 2020 where it is not about converting new people, but about mobilizing the people who are already on his team. He said: “These elections are the most important of our lifetime.” Pretty normal. I think I’ve heard every politician say that for the last 20 years, but then they say, “You have to bring everyone you know to vote. If they don’t, this will be…”
Elon Musk (archive audio): These will be the last elections. That’s my prediction. Nothing is more important, nothing is more important.
Vittoria Elliott: Some people even repeated that to me as I left the rally, and that is also something that he has said very publicly in X, even before coming to this rally. Many times, when Musk speaks in public or when he is interviewed, he represses some of the rhetoric he spreads online. If we remember the interview with Don Lemon, where he was confronted about the great replacement theory, he was a bit evasive about it.