Billionaire Man-Child Elon Musk Gives His Most Petulant Interview to Date

Elon Musk gave an interview to Bloomberg News on Tuesday, appearing remotely to an audience at the Qatar Economic Forum in Doha. And while the billionaire oligarch has given plenty of whiny and childish interviews over the years, his latest is one of the most juvenile to date.

Musk repeatedly insulted the interviewer for asking completely normal questions about his businesses like Tesla and SpaceX, and he became extremely defensive when asked about his role in President Donald Trump’s government as the head of DOGE, the so-called Department of Government Efficiency. The billionaire oligarch even called the interviewer, UK broadcaster Mishal Husain, an “NPC,” meaning a non-playable character in a video game.

Musk started the interview absolutely indignant that Husain would ask him about what he was doing to “turn around” Tesla after sales have suffered around the globe. Musk answered “it’s already turned around” and then fell silent as though that was sufficient as an explanation. Tesla’s profits plunged 71% last quarter, but Musk kept insisting that everything was fine because the stock price had recovered.

As Musk kept trying to claim that Tesla’s sales were fine, Husain pointed out that the EV company’s brand had taken a hit. She didn’t mention Musk’s Nazi-style salutes on Jan. 20, but that, along with his role in the dismantling of the federal government, have caused many people to put bumper stickers on their Tesla cars that say things like, “I bought this before we knew Elon was crazy,” something Husain mentioned.

“There are also people who are buying it because Elon’s crazy, or however they may view it,” Musk joked. “So yes, we’ve lost some sales perhaps on the left, but we’ve gained them on the right. The sales numbers at this point are strong. And we see no problem with demand.”

Musk then went on to insist that Tesla stock trading at all-time highs meant his company was in good shape and sales numbers were very good, finishing with “They’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”

It’s difficult to explain just how juvenile Musk’s attitude during the interview was to someone who hasn’t seen the video, which is available in its entirety on YouTube. The billionaire snarked about a judge who ruled against him as an “activist judge who’s cosplaying as a judge in a Halloween costume,” and whined about “activist investors” who didn’t allow him to run his company like he wanted, segueing into how he was building “millions and potentially billions of humanoid robots.”

Musk also complained that he didn’t like the questions Husain was asking, saying “now let’s move on” twice in rapid succession as she tried to ask questions.

The billionaire often gave one-word responses to questions he didn’t seem to like and paused for oddly long periods after some questions, seemingly gazing into space as he’s sometimes known to do. There was an especially long pause when Musk was asked about whether he regretted getting involved in political work. He referred to the outrage over his destruction of the government as a “violent antibody reaction,” terminology he’s used before.

“I’m not someone who’s ever committed violence,” Musk said. “And yet, massive violence was committed against my companies. Massive violence was threatened against me. Who are these people? Why would they do that? How wrong can they be? They’re on the wrong side of history.”

Again, Musk is the guy who kicked off Trump’s second term by giving two Nazi-style salutes, so he doesn’t really have a leg to stand on when it comes to the “right side of history.” But the billionaire said that it wasn’t just the people who had attacked Tesla dealerships who should be afraid. He said they were going to prison and that anyone who “funded them and organized them will also go to prison.”

Musk then made a dramatic pointing gesture at the screen, seemingly talking about the Bloomberg journalist: “Don’t worry. We’re coming for you.” The line got a tremendous laugh from the Musk-friendly crowd in Qatar, a country he visited last week as Trump’s buddy in oligarchy. In fact, Musk announced a new Starlink contract in Saudi Arabia, and the Washington Post has reported that countries are being pressured to buy Starlink services in some of the trade deals that are being negotiated.

When Tuesday’s interview got into the topic of Musk’s work in the government, including the ways that his companies have benefited, he got even more defensive. Having access to the inner workings of the federal government has hypothetically provided Musk with a unique look at highly proprietary information, the kind of things that are so secretive they’re specifically exempt from Freedom of Information Act requests. Because if a government contractor knows exactly what both the government knows and his competitors know, he has a tremendous advantage.

Musk insisted that DOGE was just an advisor to the government, incapable of taking unilateral action or dictating to federal agencies what they should do. “We are not a dictator, we are advisors,” Musk said. This is contradicted by countless things Musk has said publicly on X and in cabinet meetings. In late February, for example, Musk stood up to talk about the things he was canceling and suggested that he alone gets to decide what gets funded. The billionaire was talking about his cuts within the context of all the mistakes that had been made, acknowledging that he was making mistakes but they were rectified.

“So for example, with USAID, one of the things we accidentally canceled very briefly was Ebola prevention,” Musk said at the February cabinet meeting. “I think we all want Ebola prevention. So we restored the Ebola prevention immediately. And there was no interruption. But we do need to move quickly if we’re to achieve a $1 trillion deficit reduction in financial year 2026.”

The problem is that Musk isn’t the one who should be making that call. Congress allocates funds for programs, and Musk and his DOGE crew have no right to cancel things unilaterally. The oligarch clearly knows that this mindset has gotten him into trouble and is now just lying about how things are operating behind closed doors.

Musk was also asked Tuesday about his thoughts on regulation of AI. The billionaire had rather infamously called for more regulation of AI and a complete pause on all research in 2023 while he was secretly working on his own AI behind the scenes. Musk said Tuesday that having too many regulations “was a natural consequence of prosperity,” saying that, “this has happened throughout history.”

“When you have an extended period of prosperity with no existential war, there’s no cleansing function for unnecessary laws and regulations,” Musk said. That’s obviously a rather unnerving thing for Americans to hear when you remember that Musk is both the wealthiest man in the world and a huge defense contractor.

Musk also went on a long tangent about how white people were supposedly being persecuted in South Africa, a conspiracy theory that was thrust into the spotlight when the AI chatbot Grok started responding to any random query on X with facts about it. Musk claimed that he couldn’t get a license in South Africa to operate his Starlink service, but Husain pointed out “that looks like it’s about to change.” Musk pestered Husain about whether it “seemed right” that he should be persecuted for his race as a white man, and Husain, who was not the one being interviewed, pointed out people wanted to hear his opinion, not hers.

“Why do you like racist laws?” Musk said repeatedly as he interruptted Husain.

Asked about whether DOGE would really cut $2 trillion in spending, since the numbers haven’t materialized despite the immense destruction of critical scientific research and basic services, Musk again acted like a child, insisting that “your question is absurd.”

Musk went on to become frustrated with questions about DOGE and called Husain an “NPC” like other “conventional journalists” and said it was “like talking to a computer.”

Musk was also asked about USAID and recent comments from Microsoft founder Bill Gates, who criticized Musk for getting rid of the agency. Gates said the cuts would cost millions of lives, something backed up by research. Musk called Gates a “liar” and then said something about the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein that’s difficult to decipher.

“Who does Bill Gates think he is to make comments about the welfare of children given that he [unintelligible] Jeffrey Epstein?” Musk said to applause. “I wouldn’t trust that guy to babysit my kids.”

Musk said that any “useful” functions of USAID had been transferred to the State Department, which is yet again not his choice to make. The billionaire went on to insist that HIV/AIDS programs, which had been cut, were actually going to continue, something that simply wasn’t true.

Musk was also asked about his conversations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and insisted he doesn’t speak with him. Asked about that, Musk said, “I was on a video call with him about five years ago,” though the Wall Street Journal reported in late 2024 that he had been in “regular contact” with the Russian leader since 2022. Musk was aghast that his interviewer would believe something published in the Wall Street Journal, calling it “the worst newspaper in the world.”

Again, it’s really worth watching the entire interview if you want to see just how big of a shitshow this was for Musk. But perhaps we’re judging this interaction by older standards. Given the way that everything seems to have gone completely off the rails in the era of Trump, maybe this is just our new normal and we need to expect it. It’s a depressing place to be as a country, that’s for sure. But Musk clearly isn’t going to start acting like an adult anytime soon.