President Donald Trump addressed graduating students at the University of Alabama, who he told that Elon Musk, who left the White House to focus on Tesla’s financial crisis, and other billionaires are now “kissing my ass.”
Trump encouraged college graduates, telling them they “have to break the system a little bit and follow your own instincts, but if your vision is right, nothing will hold you down.”
He added, “You have to have the right vision. If you look at some of these internet people, I know so many of them. Elon is so terrific, but I know all of them now.” And in a statement that drew applause, he said, ”You know, they all hated me in my first term. Now they’re kissing my ass. “It’s amazing. It’s nicer this way.”
Trump also spoke of how surprised everyone, including Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg, were that he won the presidency.
“They didn’t know what happened, because I won an election, you know, there was a never a businessman that won a presidential election. Out of 100 per cent, 8 per cent were generals, and 92 per cent were politicians.”
Musk once called Trump a ‘moron’
Musk, who at one point said Trump was “a moron” and “too old” to be president, became one of Trump’s most powerful advocates and closest advisers in the White House after reportedly donating $288 million toward the president and other Republican candidates ahead of last November’s election, according to Politico.
Mark Zuckerberg, who owns Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta, has also been busy sucking up to Trump, who in 2024 threatened to incarcelate the tech billionaire, after initially butting heads with him ahead of his second White House win.
Trump frequently took swings at Facebook’s establishment of third-party fact-checkers and filed a lawsuit over his social media accounts being suspended by Meta after the violent 2021 protests at the US Capitol.
‘Not enough ass-kissing yet’
Meta then went on to donate $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund in December. In January, it announced the abolishment of its fact-checking program and an agreement to pay Trump $25 million over his suspended accounts.
According to Rolling Stone, Zuckerberg also pledged not to stand in the way of Trump’s immigration crackdowns, something he had initially opposed, and to end Meta’s diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) programmes.
Rolling Stone quoted a senior Trump adviser saying that this “was a good start” by Zuckerberg, but that “there is still a lot more ass-kissing to be done.”
