Trump-Musk Interview Draws Over 1 Million Listeners, Crypto Goes Unmentioned

An interview between Elon Musk and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on Monday evening attracted significant attention, garnering over 1 million listeners on X (formerly known as Twitter). Despite the high anticipation, neither Bitcoin (BTC) nor any other cryptocurrencies were mentioned during the nearly two-hour conversation.

The discussion touched on a wide array of subjects, including illegal immigration, the economy, artificial intelligence, and global warming. However, one notable omission was any reference to the digital asset space, even though crypto has increasingly become a topic of political discourse.

The interview was delayed for over 45 minutes due to what Musk described as a “massive [distributed denial of service] attack on X.” Musk claimed that the alleged attack was a demonstration of opposition to Trump’s voice being heard. However, a report from The Verge cast doubt on this claim, citing a source who suggested there was a “99 percent chance” that Musk was not being truthful. Cybersecurity watchdog Netblocks confirmed that X Spaces was experiencing international outages during the interview but did not verify if it was due to a DDoS attack.

Interestingly, prior to the event, bettors on Polymarket were speculating about the likelihood of Trump mentioning crypto. At one point, the odds reached a 65 percent chance for a mention of “crypto,” with over $600,000 staked. The possibility of a “bitcoin” mention peaked at 69 percent, with around $330,000 wagered. However, these expectations were unmet, leaving some bettors out of pocket.

Polymarket did not list markets for mentions of other digital assets like Ethereum (ETH), Solana (SOL), or Dogecoin (DOGE), nor did Trump reference these during the discussion. Bettors also speculated on whether Trump would mention “Tesla,” which reached a peak of 79 percent odds. However, Trump skirted around directly mentioning the electric vehicle company by referring to it as “your cars” when addressing Musk.

In the end, a user by the name of ‘bama1234‘ emerged as the big winner on Polymarket, earning over $1 million by correctly predicting most of the words Trump did or did not say during the interview. Their largest gain came from betting that Trump would not mention “crypto,” resulting in a $336,918 payout.

While crypto has increasingly become an election issue, especially with Trump’s appearance at the BTC 2024 conference in Nashville where he discussed crypto policy, it remains a topic that often goes unmentioned in broader, mainstream events. This interview served as a reminder that despite the growing importance of digital assets, they still don’t always make it into the limelight in major political discussions.