Kara Swisher Torpedoes Bonkers Elon Musk Interview — ‘Especially Stuff About White Supremacist’ Mall Shooter

Prominent tech journalist Kara Swisher torpedoed billionaire Twitter CEO Elon Musk’s bonkers CNBC interview — “especially the stuff about the white supremacist” suspect in the Allen, Texas mall shooting.

David Faber of CNBC interviewed Musk Tuesday night, a chat that produced a lot of discomfiting quotes — particularly in defense of Musk’s conspiracy theorizing on topics like white supremacy-espousing mall shooter Mauricio Garcia, whom Musk believes was “falsely” described as a white supremacist.

On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNN This Morning, co-anchors Poppy Harlow and Kaitlan Collins asked Swisher to weigh in on the interview, which Swisher thoroughly ripped:

HARLOW: With Elon Musk, what was it, a little over a year ago at such a pivotal time. What do you make of this one and those are just some of the key snippets we played for folks.

SWISHER: Well, Dave did a very good job getting a lot of news out of him, except most of the news was nonsense, unfortunately, especially the stuff about the white supremacist and calling Bellingcat, which does a lot of interesting investigative work, is it fizzops or whatever. It’s == it’s –

HARLOW: Psyops.

SWISHER: You know, he spewed a lot of conspiracy theories. Fia — whatever.

HARLOW: Yes.

SWISHER: He – he — he spewed a lot of conspiracy theories. He made a lot of pronouncements on things, calling staying home morally wrong, although I don’t feel like we should be taking moral lessons from Elon, but OK.

You know, essentially the guy who makes cars wants us to commute. Great. Thank you for that.

I don’t know, it was just bizarre. And, you know, and sandwiched in between that was, you know, some interesting ideas. But he seems to talk a lot now and spew on things that he doesn’t — we shouldn’t really be listening to him about. Although Dave did a great job, as I said.

HARLOW: He did do a great job. I was just — do you think he gets away with a lot in terms of — just because so many people have dubbed him a genius. And I wouldn’t – I wouldn’t argue with that. I think he’s brilliant. But, I don’t know, I just feel like people don’t hold him to the same standards that they hold other — certainly other CEOs to at all.

SWISHER: They don’t. Well, a lot of people do. The companies he’s involved with doesn’t. he controls most of them, so it doesn’t –

HARLOW: Companies, shareholders, boards. Yes.

SWISHER: Yes. Well, they – they – they like being on the gravy train of Elon Musk. And until – and until he doesn’t make money for them, until he loses money, not just for himself and his other shareholders who don’t seem to care in the private companies, its not going to matter.

And, of course, Tesla’s been an enormous financial success for those holding its stock, although it’s under a lot of pressure right now. He’s still going to – he’s still going to be tolerated until that changes. And I don’t know why it is with this particular person, because a lot of other people make a lot of money for people and don’t behave like this.

HARLOW: Yes.

SWISHER: But until we stop looking, they’re going to keep — he’s going keep doing this because he likes the attention.

COLLINS: Well, and, Kara, to your point about what he said about the Texas shooter, which was essentially calling it BS, the links two white supremacy –

SWISHER: Yes.

COLLINS: Even though the shooter had a swastika tattooed on him. The Texas Department of Public Safety has confirmed that he — he — they do believe he had these neo-Nazi ideologies that he had at least posted about.

SWISHER: Yes. COLLINS: But you couldn’t ignore Elon Musk talking about that, criticizing Bellingcat, which does great investigative journalism, but then his comment in a separate part of the interview that was unrelated where he said, I want to say what I want, even if it loses me money.

SWISHER: Yes, he doesn’t care. Well, it’s his money when he’s losing it. And in regards to Tesla, it’s shareholder’s money, actually. But he — that’s how he feels. And it is his money. And he — if he wants to do that, he can certainly do it. He’s paying a lot of money for those views.

Of course, he’s just hired someone who’s good at making money, Linda Yaccarino , and she’s going to spend a lot of time pushing back his comments and, you know, slowly diminishing her reputation, unfortunately. She has a terrific reputation in the ad industry.

And so if you’re trying to attract ads, you know, saying someone who’s wearing obvious Nazi tattoos is not — doesn’t have white supremacist views is unusual, I would say, and unusual for a CEO and leader. But he seems to want to do it and he’s willing to pay the price for it. And it’s, of course, his money. That we tolerate it. I don’t know what we could do, Kaitlan. I don’t – I mean what are we — what are we going to do, tell him not to be so ridiculous? It — I think we do that. That doesn’t really matter.

HARLOW: Actually, I think it’s good journalism. I think it’s accountability. I think it’s like the interview you did.

SWISHER: Yes.

HARLOW: I think Dave Faber did a really good job with that interview. Because then you all people to see who the person is –

SWISHER: Right.

HARLOW: And then they can make their own decision.

SWISHER: On some level.

HARLOW: Yes.

SWISHER: Yes, on some level, although some of this stuff gets, you know, people who really believe it is, you know, you know, go, Elon, say those things about conspiracy theories.

HARLOW: Yes.

SWISHER: There’s a lot of arguments to be said that this – that this continues to get into the bloodstream of the public and it becomes, you know – you know, if he converts one person to thinking someone not again wearing swastikas seems to be an indication of white supremacist views in my humble opinion and I think most people would think that, including, as you said, Kaitlan, the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Watch above via CNN This Morning.