The first episode of TV anchor Don Lemon's new web show has been making a splash in the last few days, thanks to a lengthy interview with none other than Elon Musk.
Their talk touched on loads of areas, including Musk's ketamine prescription and his thoughts about free speech, and it was all somewhat tense and awkward.
At the time of recording Lemon was under the impression that the show was being done in partnership with the Musk-owned social media platform X. But after the interview, Musk pulled the plug on the agreement.
Advert
You can tell why, too - Musk becomes visibly agitated with the tone of Lemon's questioning as they continue to discuss different topics.
In one clip that is now going viral, Lemon presses Musk on the question of why he's previously blamed the exodus of advertisers for "killing the company", rather than taking on responsibility for X's fate himself.
Lemon asks repeatedly, "Doesn't the buck stop with you?" and Musk clearly feels that the angle isn't an interesting one, at one point telling Lemon to "choose your questions carefully" because the interview is nearing its conclusion.
Advert
When Lemon correctly diagnoses a bit of a shift in the tone, he asks Musk: "Why does that question upset you? You seem upset by it, are you?"
Musk, typically straightforward, agrees: "You are upsetting me," going on to explain that he thinks the angle of the questioning isn't "cogent".
It's a downright awkward exchange, and Lemon tries to paper things over and carry on, but Musk seems ready to end the interview, as he does soon after, saying that he has a "room full of people" waiting on him and they're "running over".
Advert
People have been responding to different slices of the interview on X for days now, and this clip has people somewhat unimpressed with Musk's ability to respond dispassionately.
One X user wrote: "He’s asking basic questions, how is he getting stumped." Another said: "I love how Elon just keeps veering off to another subject because he’s too scared to take blame for Twitter's failures."
However, for all the people critical of Musk there are plenty who feel that Lemon's tone was indeed too confrontational given the access he got to someone who rarely grants long-form interviews.
One such observer argued of Lemon that "his primary objective was to provoke", which might not be something they can prove, but shows that not everyone was so thrilled with the interview.
Advert
Still, the full interview is well worth a watch if you want to get a sense of Musk's current headspace - hour-long sit-downs like this don't come around that often.