President Donald Trump is “not perfect” because he is a “product of his time,” says his former first buddy Elon Musk.
The billionaire made the assertion during a more than three-hour interview with the podcaster Joe Rogan, during which he made clear that he remains as right-wing as ever despite his epic falling out with Trump in June.
Still, Trump’s wealthiest friend-turned-foe (possibly turned friend again) said he does not believe Trump—who was born in 1946, making him among the first wave of the baby boomer generation—is as evil as the mainstream media portrays him to be.
“Some people still think, you know, Trump is like the devil, basically,” said Musk. “And, I mean, I think, I think Trump actually is not perfect, but, but he’s not evil. Trump is not evil. I spent a lot of time with, with him, and he’s, I mean, he’s a product of his time, but he is not, he’s not evil.”
Musk was born in 1971, making him a Gen Xer.
Rogan, 58, is also a member of Gen X. He agreed with Musk that the president, whom he endorsed last year, is far from evil.
“I don’t think he’s evil either,” Rogan said, “but if you look at the media coverage—”
Musk then cut the podcaster off, chomping at the bit to sneak in his own attack on the press.
“The media treats him like he’s super evil,” Musk said. Rogan added, “It’s pretty shocking.”
Musk defended Trump’s immigration crackdown elsewhere in the interview. He went as far as claiming that ICE’s “overzealous” arrests of migrants and American citizens are a necessary byproduct of what needed to be done.
“If Trump had lost, there would never have been another real election again, because Trump is actually enforcing the border,” Musk claimed, suggesting that an influx of migrants would cause Republicans to be too outnumbered to compete realistically.
He continued, “Now, you cannot point to situations where there’s been, you know, immigration, you know, enforcement has been overzealous, because they are not going to be perfect. There will be cases where they’ve been overzealous in expelling illegals. But if you say that the standard must be perfection for expelling legals, then you will not get any expulsion, because perfection is impossible.”
Musk, 51, has had a hot-and-cold relationship with the 79-year-old Trump this year.
The Tesla CEO catapulted Trump to the presidency by leveraging his deep pockets and the influence of his social media platform, X, starting last summer. Trump rewarded those efforts by making his dream of a “Department of Government Efficiency” a reality, only to see it turn into a spectacular bust for the administration.
As DOGE crumbled, and Musk raged that Trump was pushing to pass a mega bill that would add to the national deficit, the men’s relationship began to cool in May. Musk shared his displeasure with Trump’s so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” without mentioning him by name at first, but his criticism grew more direct as the calendar flipped to June.
The billionaires’ explosive breakup went down on June 5, when Musk accused Trump of suppressing the release of the Epstein files because he was named in them. The president fired back with personal insults and threatened to nix federal contracts awarded to Musk’s companies, such as SpaceX.
Musk then returned to focusing on Tesla, where sales had plummeted because of his pivot to politics, for much of the summer.
Trump, meanwhile, turned his focus to combating his own battles, such as the mounting pressure over the Epstein files and the still-raging war in Ukraine that he had promised to end on day one of his term.
The men reconvened in person for the first time last month during a vigil for the assassinated commentator Charlie Kirk, and have since shared kind words about each other. And while their relationship remains a far cry from what it was in the opening days of MAGA 2.0, Musk was awarded a $2 billion government contract by the White House this week, cementing that they are back on amicable terms.
