Either Trump just destroyed Elon Musk with a withering troll-job, or he made his worst gaffe ever. Either way, it's hilarious. | Source: Frederic J. BROWN / AFP (i), REUTERS / Carlo Allegri (ii). Image Edited by CCN.com.
- President Donald Trump praised Elon Musk during an interview in Davos Wednesday.
- But it was remarkably awkward: “He does good at rockets.” It seemed like Trump was dishing out back-handed compliments.
- He even compared Musk to Thomas Edison. Not the immigrant inventor Edison is rumored to have exploited. You know – Nikola Tesla?
Donald Trump just made some very weird remarks about Elon Musk during a CNBC interview in Davos. The interviewer asked if he had any comment about the Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) and SpaceX CEO.
The president’s answer sounded like a first grader’s school report:
He likes rockets. And uh, he does good at rockets too, by the way. I never saw where the engines come down with no wings, no anything. And they’re landing.
Trump continued:
I said “I’ve never seen that before.” And I was worried about him because he’s one of our great geniuses, and we have to protect our genius.
Comparing the Tesla Founder to Thomas Edison
That was a goofy answer, but he had to be trolling Elon Musk when he compared the Tesla founder to Thomas Edison.
Or this goes in the Trump gaffe hall-of-fame:
You know we have to protect Thomas Edison, and we have to protect all of these people that came up with originally the lightbulb and the wheel and all of the things. He’s one of our very smart people, and we want to protect our people.
Maybe Donald Trump just couldn’t bring himself to praise an immigrant. So he compared Musk to Edison instead of the Serbian-American Nikola Tesla. Even though that’s who Elon Musk’s car company is named after.
Or the president actually doesn’t know how Tesla Motors got its name, and that Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla were arch-rivals of electrical engineering.
Edison advocated for Direct Current (DC), while Tesla was a proponent of Alternating Current (AC). Alternating current won out in the end .
Elon Musk ‘Dumped’ Trump, Skirted China Tariffs
If he started out answering like a grade school student, Trump finished like a mob boss:
He’s going to be building a very big plant in the United States. He has to. Because we help him. So he has to help us.
But Elon Musk just finished building a big plant in Shanghai, China . The Model 3 Gigafactory will help Tesla dodge tariffs in the back-and-forth trade war between the U.S. and China. But it sure won’t help boost Trump’s job numbers.
The president could be trolling him in Davos this week because of that. Or because Musk also snubbed Trump’s presidential advisory councils in 2017.
Or most likely, the former “Apprentice” star just says the first thing that comes to mind every time he opens his mouth. And unintentional comedy frequently ensues.
Disclaimer: The opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of CCN.com.
