The Don Lemon Show March 18, 2024 The debut episode of Don Lemon's independent show: a tense hour with Musk on hate speech and content moderation, DEI, the "great replacement" theory, drug use and X's advertisers.
The debut episode of Don Lemon's independent show: a tense hour with Musk on hate speech and content moderation, DEI, the "great replacement" theory, drug use and X's advertisers.
Transcript Full transcript on rev.com → Welcome to the Don Lemon show, everyone. We're still here. In a minute, I'm going to bring you my conversation with Elon Musk, the one that everyone is talking about. But first, let me tell you a bit about the show. Contrary to what you might have heard, we weren't canceled by X.
After months of begging me, wooing me to offer some exclusive content on his platform, Elon Musk decided to scrap the deal. But our plan is and always has been to release this show everywhere. On YouTube, on Spotify, on iHeartRadio, just about any place you stream content. Now, for my conversation with Elon, as with all my interviews, no restrictions, no ground rules, nothing off limits or out of bounds. That is, until the interview ended. So what went wrong? I don't know. But my hope is that you learn something about both Elon and me. Two people who come from completely different vantage points on almost every single issue. And I challenge you, Elon, to watch the whole interview and tell the world why this isn't what you claim you want on X. Thank you for inviting us here.
Tesla headquarters. I'm surprised how big it is. I've never seen it.
Yeah, it's about three times the size of the Pentagon.
And we Both did in 16 months. It's the fastest construction project in the United States since World War II.
So I'm here, you know, as you know, I'm on the platform because you are. You say you're a free speech absolutist. Right. And there are no conditions.
Yeah. Free speech is as much as possible within the bounds of the law.
Yeah. So the reason I'm saying that is because there are no conditions on this interview. You said that, you know, speak to you for an hour. I don't like sound bites, so I welcome that. So. So let's get into it. So we're here in Austin. South by Southwest is going on. We're at the Tesla headquarters. You are in the process of moving SpaceX here, I understand.
No. So SpaceX has a massive facility in South Texas where we build and launch Starship. And then we. We have. In Bastrop, near Austin, we are about to start production at a Starlink, a large Starlink factory for Starlink terminals. But it's. But, but we're not shutting down any facilities in California.
Listen, we are here as part of a launch of a news interview show that is going to be on x dot com. It's coming. As a media industry, as you know, is going through a whole lot of changes. Next has also been affected by that. Where do you see X.com's role in the future of news and journalism? ELON Musk?
Well, I think I see the X as it's really the number one source of news in the world. So it is the one, the number one way that people actually are informed about any kind of news, meaning real time events, is on the X platform, formerly Twitter. There's, there's nothing even close for real time news. So we also want to expand upon that and we have done so with long form content. So instead of just doing what use people tweets, you can now do long form posts. You can post an entire essay, in fact you can now put an entire book post an entire book to the platform. You can do long form video content, so you can do up to four hour video segments. We really want news in whatever form it is, our information, I should say in whatever form it is to be available on our platform, whether it's short, long text, pictures, video, whatever the case
may be, you know, and some of the stuff that we do, long form video interview shows, what have you. Yeah, you, you reached out over the summer and you said it would be great to have Maddow, Don Lemon, others on the left put on this platform, you receive full support. The digital town square is full all. What do you mean by that?
I just mean that we want to make sure that there are a wide variety of viewpoints that it's, you know, we always have, for example, Tuck Carlson, who most people will view as being on the right. And you know, that's, that's a, quite a, quite a prominent name on the right. We want to have private names on the left as well to provide different views of points of view as well as centrists. Just basically a wide range of viewpoints on the platform. So users can hear different opinions. They can hear, you know, what is, what's your point of view, what's his point of view and make the, and you know, and people can make their own decision about what they, what they believe.
You didn't mean that I'm on the left. Did you think that?
I thought you were on the left, but I don't know, I'm used to, well, let's just say I don't know what the left is or the right is, frankly these days because things can be quite polarized. But you seem to. My impression was that you're, you're more likely to be described as on the left than the right. My sense is you're sort of center Left? I don't know. You tell me.
Well, did you ever watch me on CNN or did you watch.
I saw, I saw save say. Yeah, not I saw segments. Yeah, but CNN is generally considered left. Yeah.
Why did I say CNN is generally considered left? I think if you look at any sort of media survey of what is on the left or right, I think they would say like for example, Fox is on the right and CNN is on the left.
Am I missing something here?
Okay. Are you missing something? I don't know. I think that what you would. When I read that, I said, like many of my critics or detractors, they never really watched me on cnn. They just saw the clips of me either on social media or maybe on Fox News or a conservative media where it's sort of a. Where I've become a character or a caricature of what I actually am and it's taken out of context.
Sure. Well, how would you describe yourself?
I would describe myself as someone who is. I, I am independent in my thinking and I vote for people based on the issues and how I feel about it, not necessarily because of political leaning of some sort.
Well, I agree with that approach. I think that's generally how people should take things, which is, I mean there are a whole sort of set of issues which are sort of somewhat arbitrarily bucketed into right or left. But I think most, I think most citizens would think that they would agree with some things on the left, but not everything or the. Some things on the right. Not everything. So that's, that's what I think most people feel, I guess.
How much longer? And maybe, maybe the answer is forever. How much longer are we going to have to call it the formally known as Twitter? I mean even Prince went back to Prince instead of Is it always going to be X?
It's definitely always going to be X.
So X is going through some changes. A lot of media companies are going to some trade.
You're in charge of an incredible platform. Elon, how do you feel that's going?
I think it's going pretty well. So far we're seeing record usage. We've added a tremendous amount of functionality. I mentioned the. That, you know, just feel that you can only do short, you know, text and maybe a picture or something like that, short video. But now you can do long form text, long form video. We've added audio video calling. So you can not just do text DMs, you do order video calling. We improved the algorithm, I think significantly and made the system faster and better. And that's reflected in the increased usage.
So let's talk about that. Because you said you wanted all points of view, right? It's a digital town square for all.
The platform is kind of picked up where conservative media, some conservative media is left off that moving to the right, increasingly becoming part of a conservative dialogue, sometimes even conspiracy theories.
There was an article recently written about you saying that you, Donald Trump and X were the most important people or places or whatever, icons when it comes to the MAGA movement. Do you agree with that? How do you feel about that?
Well, I mean, there are nonsense articles written all the time and I certainly wouldn't agree with that one. I put in the nonsense category. So the objective fact of the matter in my opinion was that old Twitter was fundamentally a tool of the far left as. And that was really, I think a lot of it was due to being located in San Francisco, Berkeley. And so it wanted to essentially project the SF Berkeley political dogma worldwide.
You think it was far left?
I used to get, I got off the platform because I would get so much hate tweets when it was called in. So much hate tweets and just got from right wing conspiracy theorists being called everything from, you know, fag to sure,
it's the Internet, you know, that people will do. I mean, I've been called every name times a thousand.
Yeah. Do you agree that it's right now and that even it's moved into sort of magaly theory?
I certainly don't think it's right. The old school Twitter says suspended and suppressed accounts that you'd call on the right 10 times more than that accounts the left. And even when they did suspend an account on the left, it was because of arguments between two people on the left. The political donations of old Twitter were 99% Democrat. Does that sound left, right, left wing or right wing to you?
Yes. You know, when they look at donations back from a company, if a company donates literally 99% of all donations are to Democrats, does that strike you as a left leaning or a right leaning?
You mean the company donated?
I understand what you want to tell you is that Twitter employees, people at Twitter, their political donations were 99%, literally 99% to Democrats. That's obviously an extremely left leaning group.
My question to you leading into this is about maga. You and speaking of maga, you recently met with Donald Trump in Florida. What did you guys talk about?
I was at a dinner. I was not done. I was at a breakfast at a friend's place and Donald Trump came by. That's it.
So you didn't go there to meet him?
No, I went to a friend of mine's house and it said, donald Trump's coming by for breakfast. Is that just so you know, like, okay, fine.
Say he did most of the talking, the normal things he says there was nothing particularly groundbreaking or new. But he, you know, President Trump likes to talk, and so he talked. I don't call him saying anything that he hasn't said publicly. And that was, it was just a breakfast.
Did he ask you for money?
Did he ask you for a donation?
You said you're not going to donate to any candidate.
I think. While I'll voice my opinion, I think I don't want to, I don't want to put thumbless scale monetarily. That is, you know, significant.
Are you going to loan him money to help pay his bills? No, not at all. To his legal bills?
I'm not. I'm not paying his legal bills in any way, shape or form.
And he did not ask you for
money and he does not ask me for money.
Are you going to. So you're not going to endorse a candidate?
I may, in the final stretch endorse the candidate, but I don't know. Yes, I want to make a considered decision before the election. And if I do decide to endorse a candidate, then I will explain exactly why.
Are you leaning towards anyone? No, you're not leaning towards it because
you've been, let me say, I'm leaving. Leaning away from Biden.
I've made no secret of that.
Are you concerned about losing your security clearance clearance that Biden is reelected? Does that have anything to do with it?
You are leaning away from Biden, but you're not going to endorse anyone. It seems like an endorsement of President Trump because there are only two people who are running now. Nikki Haley is out.
I mean, a lot could happen between now and the election. So we'll see who, in the final analysis are the choices for president. And at that point, I may or may not endorse one of the candidates. If I do, I will provide a very detailed explanation of why I am
endorsing one or the other at that point. Might you contribute or donate?
So you have been posting up a storm, as you always do. In the past couple weeks about the redesign of the Tesla Roadster coming at the end of this year. Are there any kind of updates that you can talk about that expect from your flagship ev? I mean Tesla stock is down in the last six months. What's next for the company?
You know the stocks go up and down but what really matters is are we making and delivering great products that the Tesla products are outstanding. Last year the model Tesla Model Y was the best selling car of any kind in the world. So it's about 1, 1.2 million units. It was best selling car despite being I think around 50% more expensive than the next best selling vehicle of any kind, not just electric. So I think that's a testament to the incredible work of the Tesla team. And we launched the Cybertruck. Obviously that's being very well received. We have I think over a million orders for the Cybertruck. So it's, it's really special product that is those, I think the Cybertruck is one of those part that products that kind of comes along really once in several years, maybe once a decade. Cybertruck is a once a decade product. It is so special and I think it's our best product. So.
But everyone improves over time. I mean Apple, I thought my phone was here, but Apple, you know, the phone got better over time. I'm sure that your, your cars will get better over time. You have been tweeting about the updates in the Roadsters. There's something that we did mention the Roadster.
So look, I don't want to give away, you know, much more than what I've said publicly except that the Roadster will be a collaboration between Space X and Tesla. So you know, you can expect some rocket stuff there, a flying car maybe. It's not out of the question.
No, I gotta, I gotta reserve the cool stuff for the, you know, when we actually unveil it. But it's, it's, it's gonna, it's gonna be really cool. It's gonna have, it's gonna have some rocket technology in it. I think the really the only way to do something that's cooler than the Cybertruck is is to combine SpaceX and Tesla technology to create something that's not even really a car.
Something that's never existed before.
I'm getting Jetsons vibes, only Jetson's.
But it may not be aware like some things that I have said publicly is that will do zero to 60 in under one second. So that's by Far faster than any, you know, sports car that that exists. And, and that's not even the most exciting thing about it.
No. It does. It does not have big wings because big wings would be unwieldy on the road.
It does not have propellers.
Does have wheels. Roadster 20 questions.
It has it. Does it have a steering wheel?
Well, it'll have a drive by wire yoke essentially like a kind of like the way aircraft are what modern jets are controlled.
And do you think it's a way of the future that everyone will follow your lead on this?
I don't think anyone will ever make anything like the road through that we're going to make.
Let's talk now about space X Tesla. You got a lot of lawsuits. You've got X.com, you got a lot going on. How do you relax?
Well, I relax. I spend time with my kids, my friends and I, you know, think somewhat of a neurodechnologist. I like playing video games, so I'll play video games with, with, with friends online. I've been playing Diablo and, but I played almost all the games over the years. A long time ago I was like semi pro good at Quake. This is really dating me because we're talking about like more than 25 years ago.
I don't know video games. I just know that my, my great nephew loves Fortnite and some other stuff. He's always got the headphones and doing the thing thing. So that helps you relax.
Right? So yeah, and the nice thing is if you've got friends in different cities and they're playing the same game, you can both go online at the same time and play the game together, even though you're in different cities.
Listen, I'm not asking you anything that anyone else hasn't asked you about your controversial stuff that you tweet. You post a lot of controversial stuff. Is that considered blowing off Steam?
Well, I guess I do enjoy using the platform. I mean I do call the x platform the PvP or player versus player platform. So in video games there's player versus like environment where you're not playing against other people. And then there's PvP, which is like hardcore. You're actually playing against other people and.
But that's blowing off Steam for you.
Yeah, yeah, it is to some degree. Not always. I mean, obviously I use it for, to post jokes, to post, you know, sometimes trivia, sometimes things that are of great importance.
So you do a lot of it at night, like late at night. So when you're doing this, are you, are you sober when you do it? Always under the influence of anything?
No, I don't, I don't drink. I don't really know. I know.
So you got no drink, no smoke, no nothing? I mean, you smoke pot with Rogan.
I had one puff, yeah. I think anyone who smokes pot can tell I don't know how to have smoke pot.
But you've admitted that you've had. You have a ketamine prescription?
Well, I mean, it's pretty private to ask somebody about a medical prescription, you know, but it's. I think it's something I'd say, like there are times when I have sort of, I don't know, like a negative chemical state in my, in my brain. Like depression, I guess, you know, is. Or, or like depression that's not linked to any negative views. And, and, and then ketamine is helpful for getting, getting one outside out of a negative frame of mind. Well, listen, I, in fact, I generally, obviously I'm not a doctor, but I would say if someone has depression issues, they should consider talking to their doctor about ketamine instead of ssri.
Listen, I think that ketamine and drug therapy is increasingly becoming more in the mainstream.
Do you think you're doing it under a doctor's care?
Right? Yes. Yeah, yeah. Literally prescription from an actual, a real doctor. Not like, you know. Yeah.
But do you, do you feel like you ever abused it?
I don't think so. If you use too much ketamine, you can't really get work done. So I have a lot of work. So I'm typically putting in like, you know, 16 hour days. That's normal for me. And it's rare for me to even take off a weekend day. So I don't really have like, you know, a situation where I can be not mentally acute for an extended period of time. Like I can't, I can't really get wasted with when because I can't get my work done.
So how often do you take it?
Well, it'd be like a small amount once every other week or something like that.
But there's, I mean, there's not on the bottle where it says take this dose this many times a week or whatever.
If it's not there's a dose, there are several weeks will go by where that is.
Yeah, I think, like I said, I think the what if. I kind of is if you, if you like literally like a chemical state in your brain that you can't, you can't just think yourself out of, then ketamine is helpful for getting you out of a depressive mind state.
You suffer from depression or you have a depressive mindset. And I asked you, as someone who has suffered from reverse.
I wouldn't say that I, I wouldn't say that I have a case of like extended depression. It's just once in a while I get into a negative sort of chemical mind state. Once in a while. It's not a, not a common thing, but once in a while it does happen.
Where do you think that comes from?
I think it's just genetic, basically.
You think it's just genetic history?
I think so, yeah. I mean some people are just wired, wired to be happy all the time. Some are unfortunately wired to be sad a lot of the time. And in my case I'm generally pretty, pretty positive and optimistic. But once in a while I don't know what happens to some. Like I said, I think chemical tides in your brain once in a while it's like a brain storm. Yeah.
Do you ever worry that this may get in the way of your government contracts and clearances and also and Wall street as well?
Well, for a standpoint of Wall street, what matters is execution. You know, are you building value for investors? Tesla is worth about as much as the rest of the car industry combined from nothing. So, you know, that's pretty good. As I mentioned, we had the best selling car on Earth last year. So for investor standpoint, if there is something I'm taking, I should keep taking it.
Have you. You talk about your ketamine use and depression. Have you. You also have said.
And the reason I should say like, like the reason I mentioned the Academy prescription on the X platform was because I thought maybe this is something that could help other people. That's why I mentioned it.
Yeah. Can we talk about the Great Replacement Theory now? Some of the things that you post a great Replacement theory, you claim that Democrats President Biden's immigration plan open up the border. You said that the president is getting and Democrats are doing it to get more votes. But undocumented immigrants cannot vote in federal elections. So how is that possible?
Right? Well, you're conflating two things. One is great replacement theory. The other is which I don't subscribe to that. I'm simply saying that there is an incentive here if liberal immigrants wish I could have a very strong bias to at least everything I've read. It's very strong bias to vote Democrat. The more more that come into the country, the more they're likely to vote in that direction. But it is, in my view, a simple incentive to increase voters to Democrat voters. And yes. So the question is like how? So there's a few ways that this works. One is that when the census is done, the census is based on all people in an area, whether they are citizens or not. So if there are a concentration of people who came here illegally in a particular state or any particular state, that state will actually then get an increased number of House seats. So the House seat apportionment is proportionate to the number of people, not the number of citizens. So the illegals overwhelmingly go to places like California, New York and the. If you just look at the math, if you look at the apportionment with and without illegals, I believe California would lose. I believe, I believe the blue state. There will be a net loss of blue states of approximately 20 seats in the House. This also applies to the Electoral College. So you say. Well, this also applies to electing the President because the same, the electoral votes are also done by apportionment the same way that House seats are done.
But the reason the Electoral College is in place is to, to balance that so that that doesn't happen. So what you're saying about it is the exact opposite of the reason why the Electoral College is there. The Electoral College at this point, at this point in our history gives people who are in smaller states and red states much more of an influence over our elections than people who are in blue states and the majority of the people in this country. That's what the Electoral College does. It actually does the exact opposite of what you're saying. It protects people who are in smaller states and protects people who are in red states. Well, red states, because they tend to be smaller and less populous.
I think that that's, that statement is what you said is true. But what I said is also true, which is that if, if, as is the case, a disproportionate number of legal immigrants go to blue states, they amplify the effect of a, of a blue state vote. And the math as I understand it, you can research this obviously very easily on there. It's like it's pretty straightforward to, to research this. But my understanding is that there would be that, that the, the Democrats would lose approximately 20 seats in the House if illegals were not counted in census, and that's also 20 less electoral votes for president. So legals absolutely do affect the who controls the House of the House and who controls the presidency. It does not affect the Senate in
blue states you're talking about. I don't believe that your information on on that is right. So listen, let's talk more about the greater place because the first time you did you posted on Exit about this Jewish conspiracy, you ended up apologizing.
I didn't call it a conspiracy. I just said that there's a simple matter of incentives. You don't need a conspiracy when you have basic incentives. In my view, there is a basic incentive. There's fundamental that put for the Democratic Party to foster and usher in a large number of legals and you don't need a conspiracy in that case because you have a very basic incentive. You could say I'm wrong about that incentive, but that's my view. I'm not buying to. I don't buying some Great Replacement theory. I'm simply saying there appears to be a very clear incentive for Democrats to have to maximize the number of illegals because it helps them win election.
I'm talking about the Great Replacement theory is also part of a Jewish conspiracy theory. And when you did the tweet or you responded to the tweet about that, you ended up apologizing and which I think is, you know, it's good that you end up apologizing. You went to Auschwitz with Ben Shapiro.
So you said you learned your lesson. What did you learn?
I said I learned my lesson.
You said you learned your lesson when it, when you apologized and you said you went to Auschwitz. You saw what.
What. No, I was already aware of these things. And the nature of my comment that that really inflamed people. What I was, what I was trying to say and I did very quickly clarify this is what I'm saying is that a number of prominent Jewish philanthropists fund groups that they should really take a closer look at funding because some of the groups they fund I think are anti Semitic.
Yeah. Do you understand the connection between the two? There one, there's a connection between you said Democrats a great replacement theory. But when it comes to the actual Great replacement theory, originally we started about Jewish people, as you said, flooding in the country. And then now people are using for Democrats saying the same thing about Democrats flooding.
In my view it's a simple matter of incentives. Yeah, I don't, I actually don't see an incentive for Jewish people to want to have legal immigration. I don't think there is such an incentive.
The Great Replacement Theory is a neo Nazi trope. It's in the Neo Nazi manifesto. It's in the Turner Diaries. It's referenced by the Buffalo Mass shooter and his manifesto where 10 people, black people were murdered in Buffalo. His actual title of the Christchurch shooter's manifesto. 51 people in the Muslim mosque were murdered, 23 people murdered in El Paso by a shooter who used the same language that you use. And that manifesto, when you say Hispanic invasion, is that not.
I didn't say Hispanic invasion.
You tweeted, you quoted a tweet that said that called it a Hispanic invasion.
If I quote something, it doesn't mean I agree with anything ever again. It's just something that I want. I take this as something worth people should consider.
Why would you quote something that you didn't believe?
Because anything I quote is going to have a whole range of statements. Doesn't mean I agree with everything in it.
Do you think if there, if, if you moderated yourself more, if there was better content moderation on the platform that you wouldn't have to answer these questions from reporters about the grace rate replacement theory as it relates.
I don't have to answer this question. Great.
Replacement theory as it relates to Jewish people. Do you think that I don't have
to answer questions from reporters? Don, the only reason I've been in this interview is because you're on the X platform and you asked for it. Otherwise I would not do interview with this interview.
So you don't think you do you think that you wouldn't get in trouble or you wouldn't be criticized for these things?
Possibly. I could care less.
I don't think people should care what the media thinks about them. They're terrible judges of character.
Even someone who has one of the biggest social media and biggest information platforms in the world, you don't think. You don't care. You don't think that there's you have any X.com or you have any responsibility to the truth or moderating the platform.
You're conflating the truth with the media and I think the media is not truthful.
Well, not with just the media. I mean just the truth in general
the care about the truth very much. That's why we have for example committing community notes on the system where in order for community note to surface and provide corrective information about what somebody posts and my posts are equally subject to this. My I've been noted many times the in order for before a community note to surface people who have historically disagreed must agree in order for A Community Note to surface. And all of the code for Community Notes is open source. All of the data is open source. So you can completely recreate it from scratch. The way to build trust is transparency.
I have noticed Community Notes. I think that you are right about that. And I do think Community Notes are helpful. I think any type of content moderation, I do think that's helpful. You recently called content moderation though a digital chastity belt. Do you think that you believe that X and you have some responsibility to moderate hate speech on the platform?
I think we have a responsibility to adhere to the law and we have a responsibility to be transparent about when things are shown, why they're shown. So that's why we open source our algorithm. The I think once you start getting going beyond the law now you're putting your thumb on the scale and we don't put our thumb on the scale.
It doesn't concern you that hate speech has gone. Research shows that it's gone up on the platform since you took over. That's not concerning to you.
I believe that is false. In fact, the research that I've seen says it went down.
The study from the Institute of Strategic Dialogue found that anti Semitic tweets doubled from June 22 to February 2023. One study reported that as many as 86% of the posts reported for hateful content remained up after being reported. Hate speech on the platform is up.
So what they will typically do is they will count the number of posts but not count the number of views. So what matters is was that post given high visibility or what did like one person see it? And if you look at the number of views of how many, how many times was Hayes content viewed on our platform? It is down substantially.
Yeah, well that's not was what the study shows. And you said you like transparency. I'm going to show you this and
Don, you can get a study that will tell you whatever you want.
These are just a handful of extremely. If you look at those anti Semitic and racist tropes and tweets and as of this morning, they're still on X. And from your own content policy, these posts should have been deleted. So why haven't they been deleted? Why are they still there? Do
we delete things if they are illegal?
But these have been up there for a while.
They're not illegal, but they're hateful and they can, they can lead to violence. As I just read to you, the shooters, you know, in all of these mass shootings attributed social media to radicalizing
so Don, you love censorship is what you're saying?
No, I don't love censorship.
I believe in moderation, but I don't believe in.
Censorship is a. Moderation is a propaganda word for censorship.
But don't you think free speech is one thing, right or not?
You know, look, if something's illegal, going to take it down. If it's not illegal, then we're putting our thumb on the scale. We're bringing censors.
You're putting your thumb on the scale for moderating hate speech? I mean, you don't put out child pornography. That's not.
Some people would say that's considered censorship. I'm just saying, you know, I literally don't.
You know, I literally said if something is legal, okay, we will obviously remove it. Okay, but if it is not legal, the laws in this country are put forward by the citizens who are democracy. If those laws are put in place by the. By the people, we adhere to those laws.
Of others. If you go beyond the law, you're actually going beyond the will of the people.
Okay, agreed with the law. But if you are doing something that promotes hate and violence and ultimately leads to communities killing, you don't feel there's. You have any responsibility not to do that. When, when, when the people who are doing it admittedly are saying there's articles
all the time that lead to. To violence and killing, don't they, shouldn't they. Like you're applying a differential standard to.
But that would never. That would never be in mainstream media. These types of images, that type of language, those things would never be. We'd never. And when I was in mainstream media, we'd never promote things that would. Would be anti Semitic. We would never promote things either. Did you do. Did you not see those?
You said promote. If content is on the platform, that doesn't mean we promote it.
But that wouldn't be on a platform for mainstream media at all.
No, but you can think of. That's because the mainstream media is. Has like whatever, 20 articles a day. We have 500 million posts today.
Okay, Million. Does it bother you? How do you feel about that when you see it?
I obviously disagree with that. I think it's not good at all. Terrible.
But you don't want to get rid of it on the platform or at least moderate it.
The rules. What you're suggesting is censorship that goes beyond the law. And what I'm saying is I, that we, I guess have a disagreement because I do not believe in censorship. That Goes beyond law. And you do. We have difference of opinion in that regard.
I understand that. But these are your own rules on your own platform. These go against the rules on your platform. That's why I'm asking you if you had, if you said, listen, we allow everything. But that's not what your content rules say. And that's why I'm asking you why are they still there, your own content policy? That's why I'm asking you that.
Not because which part of our content policy says that we have. We, we should delete these, these things.
Your content policy talks about hate speech.
Yes. We don't promote hate speech. Hate speech.
And so you don't consider that hate speech.
I guess you're understanding what I'm saying. This, this. If, if, if there's. You can find like you can sign up right now and do 100 things that are hateful, but if nobody reads it, it's so you could, you can think of X as being. It's much like the Internet. It's not some, some tiny publication with like 20 articles, days, 500 million.
But everyone has the opportunity to read a deal on
the opportunity to read the Internet. Are you suggesting we should shut down the Internet?
No, but you don't own the Internet. I'm asking about you and your responsibility and your platform. And so I see how you feel now. You don't agree. We don't agree on this.
Yes, you want censorship and I don't.
No, I don't want censorship.
No, I want responsibility. I think there's, I think there.
You desperately want censorship.
No, if I want to censorship.
Censorship so bad you can taste it.
No, that's not true. It's not true. I think that there's right and wrong. And I think, and I, and I think that when you have a platform that's as big as yours and as powerful as yours and as influential as yours, and you are a person of consequence to the world with what you do, that there is a certain responsibility that goes along with what you have on your platform and what you put out to the world. And I think that's important. You don't see that responsibility.
I think the. We have a responsibility to adhere to the law. And if people want the law changed, they should talk to electorate, talk to their elected representative and get the law changed. And then we will adhere to the law. Okay, but if you want to see a big beyond the law, that is, that is us deciding to be censors. So, And I'm against censorship. I'm in favor of freedom of speech. And freedom of speech only is relevant when people you don't like say things you don't like. Otherwise it has no meaning.
But I do think that there are. There should be guardrails. And I believe in free speech as much as you. I would fight. I don't. I don't disagree. I don't agree with a lot of what you said put out on social media, but I will fight for your right to be able to say it.
Yeah. Okay. So listen, let's talk about diversity, equity and inclusion. All right. That's been a target of yours lately on X. You. There was a repost of Ben Shapiro that you claim that DEI is killing people. Specifically, you point to medicine. You claim that DEI programs are putting people at risk. Do you really believe this to be true and what evidence do you have to support it?
What I was referring to there was that if we lower the standards for doctors so that they, you know, if a test for a doctor is lowered, then the probability of them making a mistake and killing someone is obviously going to be higher.
Wait, say that again. I'm not sure I understand what you said. I want to make sure I understand what you're saying.
Yes. If the standards for passing medical exams and becoming a doctor, or especially some be like a surgeon, if the standards are lowered, then the probability that the surgeon will make mistake is higher. They're making mistakes in their exam. They may make mistakes with people and that may result people dying.
What evidence do you have, though, that they're lowering the standards? There is no evidence of that.
There's no evidence of that. Elon. What? What is the evidence?
I believe they have literally lowered the status at Duke University and that is what the article is referring to. There's no. Say they have not. There's a status.
There's no evidence about lowering standards. And I think that there is a
false statement you're making.
Okay, well, we'll figure it out.
Yeah. I think when this is posted on the platform, there will be a whole bunch of things that rebut what you said and what I said. So people can then make their own decision based on the replies, the rebuttals, and the community notes.
I think that's fair. But I do think that on this particular topic, I do think that you and Ben Shapiro are reaching and about this, because there was a.
What Ben posted said that people were. He gave instances of people who were deliberately harming people. Nowhere in the thread does Ben suggest at all. I should say that anyone is being killed as a result of dei. That's purely speculative. There's research on DEI and medicine and there's no evidence that standards are being lowered.
That DEI is affecting medicine. Actually, like only 5% of doctors are black. And a small percent. Yeah.
I think you'll find that when this is posted to the platform that people will reply to it with evidence. Okay, maybe I'm wrong. Let's see.
Okay, so. But that's my whole thing about moderation. Maybe you're wrong, but you'll put it out there. You don't know if it's right. Do you think that your responsibility to make sure something is right before you. The person who owns it, Elon Musk, is a huge figure in the world. That you should know that it's true that some of. There are people at X who can get research for you before you put something out there like that. That's not necessarily true. Even in other examples, if I say
something that is inaccurate, I'm immediately corrected on the platform. That's the advantage of a real time system like X. So there'll be immediately in the replies, people correcting me. There'll be community note that will correct me, which is attached to the actual post itself.
Do you think as many people read this?
You think as many people read that as it reads your tweet?
Yes, in fact. And if there's a community note that happens later that where somebody didn't see, but they replied to that interacted with that post, we will notify them that there is now a community note correcting that post.
Whereas if you consider the conventional media, that doesn't happen. Conventional media makes false statements all the time with no. And nobody ever hears the correction.
When I was in conventional media, I can only speak for myself if I got something wrong. If someone got something wrong on the platform that I was on, it was corrected and we made sure that it was corrected. Now I can't speak for anyone else.
That's. I think, I don't think that's a universal situation.
Okay. So I just want just the research that when you talk. Do you believe that people are dying because medical standards. DEI is causing medical standards to be lowered. Do you actually believe people are dying because of that?
I believe that if. If we. If we lower the standards for what it takes to become adopted.
You're saying if we lower the standards. But do you believe people are dying because the standards are being lowered?
I don't think that is, yes, an issue, but it could become an issue. Okay.
But the actual evidence in history shows the exact opposite. If you look at how minorities were treated by the medical system, most doctors, most doctors now are white. And there are lots of mistakes in medicine. So you're saying that my doctors are. Have bad medical care. I'm trying to understand your logic here when it comes to DEI because there's no actual evidence of what you're saying.
No, I said so if the standards, like, like let's say, I think that particular thing was referring to surgeons. Let's say a surgeon is asked, a surgeon in training is asked to do it. A series of operations under the supervision of a senior surgeon and they get a bunch of those operations. Wrong. If that happens and yet they are still approved to be a surgeon, the probability that someone will die, I think at some point is high.
Okay, I understand that, but that's a hypothetical. That doesn't mean it's happening.
I didn't say it's happening.
You didn't say it was happening.
I said it will. But I said if we lower status people, people will die.
But why respond to something or put something out there that has not happened? Because I could say you don't want it to happen.
I think we don't want to. Lowest lower standards.
Okay. If you look at the history of the medical industry, especially when it comes to black Americans, it shows the exact opposite. If you look at the Tuskegee experiment and on and on, only 5% of doctors are in America are black. All of them are white. So are you saying that if the majority of doctors are white, are you saying that deep. And there are still these inequities, right. And there's, and people still, there are still mistakes. Are you blaming DEI for that?
No, I'm very, very basically saying that if we lower standards for what it takes to become a board certified surgeon or you know, an oncologist or something where that, where the kind of disease we're talking about, if you make a mistake causes someone to die, then more people will die than if we don't lower the standards. Therefore we should not lower the standards.
Why do you think they're lowering the standards for minority doctors or women doctors or.
That's what the, that's what that article suggested. Yes, at the, at Duke University.
Okay. The evidence that I have shows that that's not true. So listen, after the door blew off this mid flight Ms. Alaskan Airlines fight, do you remember that you responded, of course, claiming that the average HBCU grad was less intelligent than the average airline pilot and stated that it will take an airline crashing an airplane crashing and killing hundreds of people for them to change this crazy policy of die. I don't know if you did. You misspelled it on purpose. Which should be dei. Do you believe that women and minority pilots are inherently less intelligent and less skilled than white male pilots?
No, I'm just saying that we should not lower the standards for that.
Okay, but there's no evidence that standards are being lowered when it comes to the airline industry.
You've repeatedly said that there's no evidence that standards being lowered. And watch the replies showing all the evidence that it is.
Replies though on social media, on Twitter are not necessarily fact and evidence.
That's people they will cite.
All the. In the replies to this this, you will see how often the this, the information cited showing that indeed there are significant cases where standards are lowered.
And I do hope that happens. I do hope that happens and I look forward to it. And as you said, if you're wrong, then you're wrong. And if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong.
Okay, so let's. So, and I'm glad we're having this conversation. Debate. This is what you should. We should be doing. Debating the issue. So if I'm wrong, then I'm wrong and then they'll be proven in the thing. And you as well. But I just want to tell you that that pilot that you talked about it in fact was a woman pilot. Landed the plane safely. Safely, despite the major found malfunction with the equipment. Boeing has taken responsibility for that incident, saying that it was caused by a faulty door panel. So I'm not sure what that had to do with lowering the standards for pilots when it was a lowering standard for pilots.
It's the, the incentive structure I believe at Boeing changed to include DEI as, as a fundamental executive incentive. So. But in my view, it should be purely about passenger safety.
Okay, but do you understand how by saying just that standards are being lowered, that you're implying that they're being lowered because people are less skilled and less intelligent and you're talking about people of color and, or women.
Look, I'm saying we should not lower standards. But do you.
I think everyone can agree that you can't, you shouldn't lower standards.
You're implying that they're lowering standards because of people of color or women because someone is not a white male. You're saying that they're less skilled and less intelligent.
That's what you Know, I'm not saying that. I'm simply saying that they are.
Then why would they be lowering the standards?
I don't know. Why are they lowering the standards?
Just so you know, 5% of pilots are few female, 4% are black. So you're, you know, you're talking about this widespread takeover of minorities and women when that's not actually true.
I'm not saying this is widespread takeover.
Well, you're saying that the standards are being lowered because of certain people. You. How do you. You don't believe in di, Right? Do you not believe diverse in diversity, equity and inclusion?
I think we should be treat people quite according to their skills and their integrity and that's it.
Do you know that studies show?
Yeah. Well, we can look them up. So your reaction to study, show and understand. Right. Because I always like to say. I always like to point to an exact study. Right. Something that is factual. It's the same thing when you talk about. Well, let's see what the replies are on Twitter or on.
Yeah, so I feel the same.
I feel the same way about that. But this is what studies have shown and people will reply and they'll say that companies with more diversity and their leadership teams have reported higher innovation rates than those with a lower. With lower diversity or low diversity and they're better companies and they make more money. This whole idea about dei, if you go woke or whatever, you go broke, that's not necessarily true. People with diverse leadership teams and diverse workers make more money and more innovative.
Like I said, my view is that the only basis for promoting somebody should be their skills, talents and their integrity. And that's it.
I want to ask you about. There's. There's a federal government eeoc. They are also currently involved in a lawsuit against Tesla that alleges that there's a history of widespread racial harassment against black Tesla employees, as well as a pattern of retaliation for speaking out. What do you say that.
Well, there's. I don't believe that is. That is true. I think we've got a very good. If you walk around the, the Tesla Fremont plant, I think it's a very good atmosphere. In fact, I practically lived there for three years trying to make the production work.
Were you aware, Were you aware of such behavior?
So you're saying that this is not true? It's not happening?
Well, I mean, there's over 20,000 people. So you say like, if there's over 20,000 people in one building, well, is everyone going to be behaved perfectly? No, Did I see any. Any situations that I thought were improper? I did not.
Let's talk about trans rights and the woke mind virus, because you talk about that a lot. You write about that a lot on the. You have been deeply outspoken about the issue of trans. Right. You posted trans rights. You posted that pronouns and bio mean the woke mind virus ate your brain. Do you know what the term woke actually means?
It's come to mean a lot of
things, but what it actually, what originally it was meant to mean, it's just being aware of inequities in society and being aware of facts and history.
Yeah, I think it's going to be. I think. I think being aware of inequities in society is fine, of course, but try to blame everything on. Trying to make everything a race issue is, I think, divisive and corrosive to society,
even as it relates to trans issues, which is what I'm.
Race or, you know, gender or whatever you think blaming. You think that society blames everything on racism now?
It blames a lot of things on. And. Yeah.
I think. I think we should. We should. We should. We should not. Not make this a constant subject. I think we need to move on. I think we just, you know, treat people like people.
You don't agree that there's. This country was founded on racism and founded on slavery and in many ways inequities that still continue on to this.
I think every country at that time, and I think even today was extremely racist. Every country. And obviously slavery was present in about half this country and. No, but not. Was not present in the. In the North. There was racism for sure. But, you know, the. I think we want to look to the future rather than the past and instead of engaging in constant rehashing of the past. Because in fact, if you look at history, if you study history broadly, everyone was a slate. Everyone.
Yes, well, not everyone was a slave.
No, everyone was a slave. But we are all descended from slaves.
So just a question of when was it more recent or less recent? That's it. Right. So the. But what. What future do we want? Is this something we want to make part of our constant dialogue forever, or do. Do we want to say, like, let's just move on and treat everyone, you know, according to just who they are as an individual?
I agree with you with that. That's the ideal. But what the evidence shows is that that's not what's actually in practice.
I think we're doing Better than anywhere else.
That's true. I agree with that. But that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean a lot to a whole lot of people who are able to take advantage of the opportunities that you were able to take advantage of simply because the color of your skin.
What advantage? What advantages? What color my skin give me?
Well, there's a certain. There's an ease that you have in society that you, that many people of color don't. You were able to come to this country voluntarily. There are many people who are not able to come to the country voluntarily. There are people who came here, who
And there is a legacy of slavery that still continues on. There's a legacy of racism that still continues on in this country.
Well, if we keep talking about it nonstop, it will never go away. If we keep making that the central thing, it will never go away.
I think I'm just making a simple statement of fact. So I think, I think we want to get away from making everything a race or a gender or whatever issue and just treat people like individuals.
Do you have any desire to understand what many people of color and even trans people, how they feel about this country and how they're treated in this country? If they, if they say and they believe that they are treated a certain way in this country, why don't you believe them?
You cannot have a situation where someone is a self described victim and they just get to be that because that's how they feel.
I think that that does happen in some cases, but not all cases. And I think that not understanding the history of the country, I think is, is a real shame. Look, I've had.
We should understand other countries.
I've had incredible opportunities as a person of color.
Right. But I've also been very, very well.
But I've also been discriminated against. And I know that I have and I know that that's real. And for someone to say that that isn't happening, I should not, I should just move forward and not think about that and ignore the past is insulting.
I'm not saying it, Don. You keep putting words in my mouth. I'm not saying it.
You said. I'm saying that we want to, we as we as a country should move beyond the questions of race and gender and we should treat people like individuals and base our opinions on them, on the, you know, their character and their skills.
I don't think that anyone will disagree with that. Exactly. All I'm saying is that that's not happening and is not equal for everyone. That those opportunities don't happen for everyone. And I am a living example that they don't. I know that they don't because I live it.
You've been incredibly successful.
I have been, in spite of it all. But I. But I am. I know what I know. I've experienced what I've experienced. You haven't done that. And I cannot. I don't know what it's like to be from South Africa. I don't know what it's like to be a white man. I don't know what it's like to be a woman. I don't know what it's like to be a Latino person. I don't know that. So I wouldn't speak for them and just say, you need to move on. That's not for me to say. I. Maybe I believe that the country. It would be great if the country could live up to that ideal. You think that everyone has the same opportunities in America, regardless of their background and ethnicity.
Do you agree? No, I don't think everyone is the same opportunities.
Okay, so when you talk about. Let's talk about trans rights, when you decided to talk about the trans rights movement, you said that it was a woke mind virus. Why do you believe the trans rights movement is a woke mind virus? What do you mean by woke mind virus?
Woke mind virus is when you start carrying about people's skills and their integrity and you start focusing instead on gender and race and other things that are different from that. I think the world wine virus is fundamentally racist, fundamentally sexist, and fundamentally evil.
And we've got a little bit more time, so you choose your question.
Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. But you. I would appreciate you answering these. I think it's important that we're doing this. I think it's important to the. To world. The world to hear this, especially what's going on in our country. The reason I ask you, listen, there are a whole lot of things that people maybe have questions about when it comes to transgender people. Even people who are part of the LGBTQ community have questions about that. But if you are a free speech absolutist.
And that is part of the First Amendment also, the freedom of expression falls under that First Amendment as well. So why can't people choose to identify with the gender that they feel comfortable with or with? Use a pronoun. Isn't that part of freedom of expression?
I guess they can Ask others to do whatever they feel they can. Ask others to do anything. It's a different question whether they mandate that others do.
Okay, let's, let's talk more about free speech and for advertisers. Right? Because all this controversy, I believe, as you know, has made X less appealing to advertisers. About half of them have left the platform you call advertisers that left x dot com. You said there were oppressors. You've even gone as far as saying it publicly that they can go F themselves or go fuck themselves.
If they're going to force censorship on the company before advertising, then obviously I find that unacceptable.
You find it unacceptable. Why is that not a form of free speech? They are free to advertise where they want. They're not beholden to. They're not obligated to advertise that.
So how is that not free speech?
They, they, that's. Whereas the other platforms will censor on behalf of, of advertisers. The X platform will not.
Okay, so. But you think it's, you don't think it's okay for them not to advertise with or have their content or their advertisement next to something that is anti semitic or.
That is a different question. You, we, there's, there's, you can absolutely choose where next to which content do you want advertising to appear? Absolutely, of course. And we do. We have, I think, very good ad placement controls in this regard.
Yeah. So you said if they kill the company, it's them. But doesn't the buck stop with you?
I mean, you're on. I have to say, choose your question carefully. There's five minutes left.
So is this the question you want to ask?
Same question is you said, you said that they are killing the company. But you're the head of the company. Buck doesn't stop with you.
I acquired X in order to preserve freedom of speech in America, the First Amendment. And I'm going to stick to that. And if that means making less money, so be it.
So I have to be. Listen, I'm just being honest. Right? I'm not trying to, like, get you or anything. I was just surprised that you would blame other people for killing the company. I mean, you're the. Wouldn't you say the buck stops with the President of the United States regardless of what happens.
Why would, why would that question upset you? Seem upset by it? Are you?
And I'm not trying to upset you.
Well, you are upsetting me because the way you're phrasing questions. I think is. Is not cogent. It's not what? Not cogent.
Yes, go ahead. So the. If, if, if, if given a choice where an advertiser is saying like you have to censor all this content on the platform irrespective of where their advertising appears, then our answer will be like, look, you, you. You can choose where you want your advertising, what you want your advertising to appear next to, but you can't insist on censorship of the entire platform. If you insist on censorship of the entire platform, even where your advertising doesn't appear, then obviously we will, we will not want them as an advertiser.
So what would you say to advertisers to who have left the platform or who are considering coming back or not coming back? What would you like to say to them?
Well, first of all, almost all of our advertisers are coming back platform. So it's about very short list of advertisers who are not coming back to Typhoon. And our advertising revenue is rising rapidly and our subscription revenue is rising rapidly. And I feel very optimistic about the future of the platform.
Okay, listen, I honestly, I'm not meaning to offend you. You're an intense person. Where does that intensity come from?
I was born that way and I had a tough childhood. You did. So, yeah.
Walter Isaacson goes into it in the book and we only have a couple minutes left, so.
Too long to describe. So the one or two questions I can do and then we'll call it right.
Okay. Again, I don't mean to upset you. Why are you. You just.
No, I have a whole room full of people waiting to meet with me.
So we're just going over time. Okay.
All right, I understand that. So you, when you talk about. You said you were born that way.
Did you think that the way that you see the world has to do with your relationship with anyone? Perhaps your father or someone in your family?
I think we're all affected by the people we grew up with. My aspiration is to do whatever it takes to extend the. Extend consciousness into the future. That's my goal. To make life multi planetary as part of extending consciousness into the future.
Has this has in the past few years and considering everything that's gone on, has it been difficult for you and your family life?
So then how do you see your legacy, Elon? How do you see how people see?
First of all, I say that the. If I died knowing that I. That I did what was Right or did my best to do what was right. And even if in the history books they said I did wrong, I would still feel okay about that. I care about the reality of goodness, not the perception of it. I think we should view civilization as tenuous, as fragile. If you, if you do study history broadly, you'll see that there's a rising pole to civilizations. They don't always go up. So we should do everything we possibly can to preserve and extend civilization as we know it and improve it. It's become more enlightened over time, and we therefore want to address civilizational risks. We want to make sure that we don't have, for example, demographic collapse, which is the case in a lot of countries, just very low birth rate. We want to avoid, obviously avoid World War 3. Anything that is a civilizational risk. That's what I care about, civilizational risks. How do we extend consciousness into the future such that we are able to better understand the nature of reality? That's what I care about. That's my motivation.
I know you have to go. If you'll just give me. I'll do a rapid fire thing here. If there. Is there anything that you would change about anything that you've done in your life in the past or recently.
I've made many mistakes over the years. If I had a time machine, I'd go back and fix them. But I don't have a time machine.
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
And as Elon would say, you be the judge. Let me tell you something about this show. The conversation doesn't end just because the camera stops. We'll see you next time. Thanks for watching. Thanks for watching the Don Lemon Show. Click on the image in the top right to subscribe to my channel and the thumbnail in the bottom right to watch more content from my show. I'll see you next time.