Longtime journalist Kara Swisher appeared on "The View" Thursday, discussing her decades-long relationship with tech billionaire Elon Musk.
Among her comments was that Musk was upset when President Joe Biden's White House excluded him from a gathering of electric car manufacturers. This incident created his attraction to Trump from the beginning.
"He called me ten times about it. I was like, get over it. It's because you don't have unions. And I would agree, I called the White House and said, you need to invite this guy in. He is the pioneer in this area. He's really angry. They were like, come on, Kara. He's a big boy. I'm like, no, he's not. He's an adult toddler. So no."
Sunny Hostin asked if she thought the bromance between Trump and Musk would eventually implode and Swisher said that it's clear Musk is "still in charge."
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"I think what Trump sees in Elon is money. There was an even trade. You show off my cars at the White House," said Swisher.
"And I give you $100 million," Hostin said, and Swisher repeated in agreement.
She also spoke about the community of so-called "tech bros" suddenly being seen as the authority on everything.
In another incident she recalled Musk downplaying the COVID-19 pandemic. When she said that pandemics usually kill over 1 million people, Musk said it would only be 1,000.
"I was like, thank you, doctor. You don't know what you're talking about. This started to get typical among tech people. They would have one talent and move over — suddenly they're an expert on Ukraine," Swisher said.
She agreed that Musk's success has been "on the back of government," and that this applies to all tech billionaires.
"We paid for the internet, folks," said Swisher. "It wasn't these guys. They're riding on our rails. And so he made a lot of money with government contracts. Tesla was saved by an Obama loan. So, he certainly wasn't disdainful of government. He wanted to be part of it for sure."
The reason Musk was so interested in government bureaucracy is that "all these guys, not just him, they're frequently wrong but never in doubt. When they're in their group — and you become that rich — you have a lot of enablers. You have people saying yes all the time. They're in violent agreement with you. When someone pushes back, they become the enemy after a while. So, they live in worlds that are increasingly small and comfortable. So, they don't like feedback. They don't want to hear back. Then they become the expert on everything."
