Donald Trump On The Phone With Elon Musk

Submission 2,501

Part of a series on Elon Musk Interview With Donald Trump. [View Related Entries]

About

Donald Trump On The Phone With Elon Musk refers to a photo taken of former President Donald Trump during his Twitter / X Spaces interview with Elon Musk on August 12th, 2024. The photo, which showed Trump smiling while looking intently at his smartphone, turned into an exploitable format with users captioning it to represent different situations and using it as a reaction image. It also became the subject of fan art, with some drawing embellishments and extensions of Trump's body.

Origin

On the evening of August 12th, 2024, Elon Musk held a conversation with Donald Trump on X / Twitter Spaces. After some technical difficulties, the interview was streamed to listeners. Steven Cheung, Trump's spokesperson, posted a photo (seen below) of the former President taking part in the conversation while it was ongoing with a smartphone, earning over 15,000 likes in less than a day.^[1]

Spread

Posters quickly seized on the image of Trump as it became the subject of memes. Some commented on his setup and demeanor. For example, X user @zoealannahbates expressed surprise that Trump used the X app on "light mode" with white as the default background color instead of black. The post (seen below) earned over 3,200 likes in less than a day on August 12th, 2024.^[2]

Others turned it into an illustration of their own attitude towards particular events. Several of these posts revolved around waiting for service workers or engaging in bad behaviors. For example, on the morning of August 13th, X user @RampCapital imagined Trump as themselves conducting a phone call from prison, earning over 300 likes in less than a day (seen below).^[3]

Another photo taken from a different angle by Trump's team during the call was memed in a similar fashion. For example, X user @straussanator earned 54,000 likes on August 13th, 2024, for a post (seen below) depicting Trump as somebody waiting for a group chat to respond to his texts.

Also on August 13th, X user @SmoothDunk created an image of Trump with his feet up while talking on the phone, extending the image with a redraw. The post (seen below) earned over 54,000 likes in a day.^[5]