Fact-checking the Trump-Musk interview on X

More than 1.2 million users on X (formerly Twitter) tuned into a two-hour chat on August 12 between Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and X owner and tech giant Elon Musk.

After a 45-minute delay, the social media CEO and the presidential hopeful addressed a range of topics, including immigration, the assassination attempt on Trump, attacks on opposing candidates, and climate change. 

Much of the discussion focused on Trump's campaign talking points, which had already been heard in previous rallies — it was a reiteration of classic talking points as opposed to new topics or claims.

However, unlike in a usual media interview, where Trump would have faced resistance over some of his claims, the Republican benefited from a willing and agreeable listener in Musk, who has openly endorsed Trump's second presidential run. 

The conversation was peppered with false, misleading, and unsubstantiated claims. Logically Facts explores them below. 

Trump on 'border czar' Kamala Harris   

In reference to his opponent, Democrat presidential hopeful Kamala Harris, and her alleged management of the U.S. border with Mexico, Trump claimed, "She was the border czar, and people can't allow them to get away with their disinformation campaign. Now, she's saying she wasn't really involved … she was totally in charge." 

He continued, "...she (Harris) was in charge of the border and the border was the worst ever." 

Trump has repeatedly labeled Harris as the "border czar," a claim he's made before and one shared by the Republican campaign previously. 

Screenshot of Trump's post on Truth Social from July 2024. (Source: Truth Social)

However, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), with partner agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), police the U.S. borders. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is currently the official in charge of border security. There is no such position as the "border czar" in the U.S. government. 

According to a White House "fact sheet," in 2021, as Vice President, Harris led U.S. diplomatic efforts with Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras to address the "root causes" that exacerbate migration by reducing poverty, violence and corruption. Harris' scope of work on immigration and migration during her tenure as vice president has not included border security. 

Trump on having 'built hundreds of miles of wall' 

Trump, attacking Harris' stance on immigration and incarceration, claimed that he built "hundreds of miles" of the border wall during his tenure as president. 

"She (Harris) doesn't want to build the wall even though the walls work," Trump said. He further claimed, "I built hundreds of miles of wall. And that's why we had such good numbers," referring to a purported dip in border crossings during his tenure. 

Trump's promise to build a barrier along the almost 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border was critical to his victory in 2016. 

However, we found this claim to be misleading. 

We referred to a U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) report from January 8, 2021, part of a U.S. Senate hearing document by Senator James Lankford on the wall. 

According to the 2021 report, Trump's administration built or replaced approximately 453 miles of primary and secondary border walls by the end of his term in 2021, after which the Biden administration suspended the project. This mainly included replacements of existing, smaller, and damaged barriers. The report also states that only around 47 miles of primary wall and 33 miles of secondary wall systems were constructed where there were none before. 

Screenshot of the data from the January 8, 2021, U.S. Customs and Border Protection status report. (Source: CBP)

At the U.S. border wall, barriers are categorized into two types: primary and secondary barriers. A "primary barrier" is a physical obstacle (a fence or a wall) to prevent crossings.

A "secondary barrier" is a reinforcement layer (patrol road or a fence) behind the primary barrier to slow down individuals who breach it. 

A 2020 BBC report found that Trump's promise to construct a border wall evolved from 2,000 miles in 2016 to 500 miles by 2021.

Trump's insistence on constructing the border wall was mired in controversy. In 2019, Trump declared a national emergency to fund the border wall after Congress rejected his $5.7 billion request. He diverted $6.3 billion from counter-drug funding and $3.6 billion from military construction budgets, sparking legal challenges from environmental groups, and was also accused of bypassing Congress. 

Trump on the Keystone XL pipeline 

Trump, attacking incumbent President Joe Biden, criticized Biden's shutdown of the Keystone XL Pipeline and said it could have employed 48,000 people and pipeline workers. 

The 1,179-mile-long Keystone XL pipeline project was halted during the Obama administration in 2015 and was resumed under former U.S. President Donald Trump's administration in 2017. On January 20, 2021, Biden signed an executive order revoking the Keystone XL pipeline permit. The 875-mile pipeline, owned by TransCanada, would have carried heavy crude oil mixtures from Western Canada to the U.S. state of Nebraska, where it would join an existing pipe.  

Like other claims from this interview, this is not the first time we have heard Trump's claim about the Keystone XL Pipeline's job creation ability. In 2018, Trump said, "It's a political decision made by a judge. I think it's a disgrace. 48,000 jobs, I approved it…," responding to the federal court ruling halting construction of the pipeline.  

However, we found a 2014 report by the U.S. State Department that estimated operations would require "approximately 50 total employees in the United States: 35 permanent employees and 15 temporary contractors."

The report also estimated that the budget allotted would support a combined total of around 42,100 jobs throughout the United States for the up-to-two-year construction period, indicating they would consist of predominantly contractual and short-term roles.

Screenshot of the 2014 State Department report. (Source: Library of Congress) 

We also found multiple reports by media outlets, including CNN, Forbes, and the Washington Post, that reported on this when similar claims about job creation surfaced during the pipeline's construction and subsequent debates. Logically Facts previously debunked a similar claim. 

The pipeline faced major backlash from environmentalists and Native American communities owing to the repercussions of setting up the project that would cut through protected and fragile ecosystems. 

Trump on migration 

Trump also made other claims about migration under Biden and Harris. He stated, "I believe it's over 20 million people came into our country, many coming from jails, from prisons, from mental institutions, or a bigger version of that is insane asylums, and many are terrorists."

The number of U.S. Customs and Border Protections (CBP) encounters over the Biden and Harris administration, February 2021 to June 2024, was just over 10 million. Screenshot of CBP encounters data from 2021 to June 2024 (Source: CBP.gov)

House Republicans also referenced this same figure, but they claimed that about two million additional migrants evaded border patrol. There isn't definitive data on evasions or unauthorized migrant numbers, but both figures above would only set the number of migrants at closer to 12 million than 20 million. Trump's figure is incorrect and exaggerates the number of illegal migrant encounters. 

There is also no evidence that an additional 10 million migrants evaded border patrol and entered the U.S. illegally. 

The 10 million encounters also does not represent that 10 million people actually entered the U.S. There are three categories of encounters, which include apprehensions, which refers to people detained for crossing the border illegally, but also includes people seeking legal admission at official ports of entry but who are found ineligible and people who are seeking humanitarian protection.

Encounters also include the same individuals, as some people make multiple crossings and appear more than once in the data. There is also no evidence that many migrants come from prisons or "mental institutions"; this is unsubstantiated. 

Trump also made similar claims about prisons and migration when referring to the "Congo." Claiming that "From the Congo, they're coming… and 22 people came in from the Congo recently, and they're murderers" and "They take them out of jails, prisons, they take them out, and they bring them to the United States."

However, no single country is called the "Congo"; instead, there are two nations, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo, located in central Africa. Trump does not specify which country he refers to. His claims are also unsubstantiated, and there is no evidence that these countries are emptying prisons and deliberately sending people to the United States. 

CNN investigated a similar claim by Trump in March 2024, where human rights organizations told the news company that there had been no news of mass prison releases in either country. They also reported that Congolese migrants only represented a small fraction of overall arrivals to the United States. 

In the interview, Trump also restates that his immigration numbers are the best. He says, "In my last week, we had the best illegal immigration numbers, meaning stopping. It was at the lowest - you've seen the chart. It's become quite a famous chart. But that was the lowest point ever recorded."

While immigration numbers were significantly high during Biden's administration, Trump did not have the "lowest point" of immigration ever recorded. CBP records from 1925 to 2020 of "nationwide encounters" show lower numbers of apprehensions for several years, including 1970 and 1971, when compared to Trump's administration. However, there were fewer apprehensions in 2017, 2018, and 2020, years under Trump's administration, than in most years between 1973 and 2016. Figures of migration into the U.S. also decreased in 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdown restrictions, with the largest decrease between March and April, which led to a 53 percent reduction. Numbers rose again when these restrictions were lifted in 2021.

Trump on Venezuela 

Trump also made claims about migration from Venezuela and the country's crime rate. In the interview, he said, "Venezuela's crime rate is down 72 percent. They're taking their drug dealers. They're taking, frankly, their prisoners; they're emptying out their prisons. They're taking their criminals, their murderers, their rapists and they're delivering them..."

It is difficult to get accurate and reliable crime statistics in Venezuela because the government doesn't publish dependable data, Mike LaSusa, deputy director of content at the think tank InSight Crime, told Factcheck.org and PolitiFact. A report by The Spanish language news agency EFE, republished by Venezuelan media outlet El Nacional, reported that "The government has not published the total number of murders or robberies, the most common crime in the country, for more than 10 years."

Venezuelan security officials reported that there had been a 25 percent drop in crime compared to 2023. However, they did not specify what crimes this represented, and due to a lack of reliable data, this could not be verified. The figure does align with findings from the Venezuelan non-profit Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, which reported a 25 percent decrease in violent deaths, which includes homicide and deaths under police investigations. Roberto Briceño-León, the founder and director of the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence, also told Factcheck.org that the number of violent deaths in Venezuela has been declining for years and is nearly 70 percent lower than it was in 2018. Still, this decline would predate the Biden administration.

However, there is no evidence that Venezuela is deliberately releasing prisoners and sending them to the United States. Various non-profit organizations told PolitiFact and Factcheck.org that prisons are not emptying out or that prisoners are being sent to the United States.

Trump on food prices and inflation 

The duo also discussed the economic situation in the U.S. On inflation, Trump asserted, "Food prices are up 50, 60, even 100 percent in some cases," and later, he stated, "I think we have the worst inflation we've had in 100 years."

Trump's estimation of the rising food prices exaggerates the food price inflation figures from the past few years. He made the same claim about rising food prices under Biden when speaking to the National Rifle Association in February. At the time, PolitiFact found that the claim was mostly false. According to PolitiFact, food costs have risen faster during Biden's presidency than under any of the five previous presidents. In the first three years, food prices increased by 20.3 percent.  

The accurate figure is less than half compared to the lowest number provided by Trump during the interview. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), food price rises are expected to continue decelerating in 2024 compared to recent years; the predicted price increase of all food is 2.2 percent.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the inflation rate peaked in June 2022 at eight percent, the highest since 1981. The rate in the U.S. reached double figures in the 1970s, so the June 2022 inflation peak was not the "worst inflation in a hundred years."

The inflation rate has decreased significantly since the 2022 peak; in July 2024, it was estimated at 3.2 percent.

Trump on climate change 

During the interview, Trump stated, "The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years."

Trump's estimation of the velocity of the sea-level rise is inaccurate. According to NASA, the global average sea level has risen by four inches in the last thirty years (since 1993). Moreover, the average sea level rose by 0.3 inches only from 2022 to 2023. The rate has surged in the past 30 years; the global sea level rose on average 0.07 inches per year in 1993, but the current rate is 0.17. This acceleration is due to global warming and the development of the El Niño phenomenon.

Screenshot of NASA's graph showing the rise of average global sea levels in centimeters since 1993. (Source: NASA)

Nearly 40 percent of the U.S. population lives in coastal areas where the sea level affects the frequency of flooding, shoreline erosion, and storm hazards.

According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), the average sea level has risen eight to nine inches since 1880. Global warming is causing the average sea level to rise in two ways. Firstly, by melting glaciers and ice sheets, which add water to the ocean, and second, by expanding the volume of the sea as the water gets warmer.

Old claims, new technical issues

The conversation was unique in format but not content, as many of the claims repeated Trump's campaign talking points, which went unchallenged throughout the discussion. The public and media reception to the talk focused less on the substance of the discussion and more on the technical challenges that delayed the kick-off in the first place. Elon Musk blamed these glitches on "a massive DDOS attack on X." While the claim of a cyber attack stands uncheckable, some experts found the cause unlikely. 

Follow Logically Facts' coverage of the U.S. elections with fact-checks, analysis, and articles here.