In an interview with CNBC, current President of the United States Donald Trump was told about Tesla’s recent valuation at an incredible $100 billion, and was then asked about Elon Musk. Trump’s answer praised Musk’s genius, a genius Trump noted needed protection, along with Thomas Edison and whomever came up with the wheel. Then he said that Tesla would be building another U.S. factory, something which Tesla has not announced any plans to do.
The interview took place at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where Trump spoke with CNBC’s Joe Kernen. Here’s the clip itself:
As you can see, Trump is speaking with his usual carefully-considered eloquence, employing the sort of diction and sentence construction one would normally only demonstrated by those lucky enough to have just been struck with some plywood or just finished huffing some oven cleaner.
Of Elon Musk, Trump said
“I was worried about him, because he’s one of our great geniuses, and we have to protect our genius. You know, we have to protect Thomas Edison and we have to protect all of these people that came up with originally the light bulb and the wheel and all of these things.”
It’s not exactly clear why Trump was worried about Musk, but it’s all okay now, it seems. As far as protecting Musk and other geniuses like Thomas Edison and that brilliant prehistoric brainiac who came up with the wheel, Trump’s protection plan may find those jobs a bit tricky, since Edison died 89 years ago and whoever invented the wheel was long dead probably at least 3,000 years before America was even founded.
Still, good thought! Protect those geniuses!
Trump also noted that Musk has also enjoyed great success with his SpaceX company, and marveled at the SpaceX launch vehicles’ vertical landing methods:
“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.”
Yes, he does good at rockets, doesn’t he? So good. Just like our President does good at word-talking.
Perhaps most interesting was Trump’s assertion that Tesla would be building a second factory in America:
“He’s going to be building a very big plant in the United States.”
Now, Tesla doesn’t seem to have any plans for a second U.S. plant, but, as Trump continued, maybe he wasn’t really asking:
“He has to. Because we help him, so he has to help us.”
That doesn’t sound so much like Tesla was planning on building a plant as much as Trump is telling Tesla to build another plant. It’s also not clear just what he meant by “we help him, so he has to help us” which one could almost call a quid pro quo sort of arrangement.
I wonder if President Trump has much experience with those sorts of arrangements? Someone should ask him about that!
https://jalopnik.com/president-trump-wants-to-protect-geniuses-like-elon-mus-1841166463