Look, I've been in the "controversial interview" seat. What @DonLemon came after @ElonMusk with felt like malice. Elon—in clear discomfort—opens up in good faith about intensely private struggles; Lemon picks precisely that moment to begin emptying an entire drawer of knives. 1/
@donlemon @elonmusk That's a dick move, sure, but it's Lemon's right. It comes with the territory of being a partisan football, and Musk should have expected it. The real loss is that it's a huge waste of an interview, because Lemon exhibits zero curiosity or interest in anything beyond posturing.
@donlemon @elonmusk You've got one of the world's most influential men in front of you, on camera, with his shields uncharacteristically down. There's rapport. You can get genuine, unconsidered answers—explore his unguarded thought and beliefs. Instead, you just slap him until his gloves come up?
@donlemon @elonmusk Imagine pivoting directly from the interview subject confiding in you about his depression to: "So you really hate them Jews, huh? Here's ten bad tweets from 1997 and a study that says you're a bad person. You masturbate to hate speech, don't you?" That's what Lemon did.
@donlemon @elonmusk Lemon had the shields down and could have actually gotten real, serious responses to his real and serious criticisms. That's the tragedy of the spectacle: it's not that the questions are bad, but that the interviewer was. What a waste.
I wouldn't have bought him a car either.
@donlemon @elonmusk The cherry on top is that despite being ambushed, Musk delivers the line of the interview: "You want censorship so bad you can taste it."
Even Lemon can't help but laugh, lowering his head to hide his smile—"That's not true!" he contends.
He just wants "responsibility."
Edward Snowden’s take on the Don Lemon Musk interview is one of the most insightful I have read :
https://x.com/snowden/status/1769817164205203713
Reading this and dodging the DonLemon acting like a fucking retard for 2 hours will save your brain cells.
Edit : here’s Snowden’s best line of the entire interview-
https://x.com/alx/status/1769854312677540089
Can you link/archive Snowden's entire thread? I can only see his first comment.
https://archive.ph/JYfXx