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Elon Musk to Interview Trump on X Social Media Network 

US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
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Elon Musk to Interview Trump on X Social Media Network 

US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)
US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk are seen at the Firing Room Four after the launch of a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket and Crew Dragon spacecraft on NASA's SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, US, May 30, 2020. (Reuters)

Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk is due to interview Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump on the X social media network on Monday in an event that could inject more surprises into the turbulent US presidential election.

The interview, scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern Time (0000 Tuesday GMT), could provide the former president an opportunity to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is seen as sagging.

His Democratic rival for the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris, has erased Trump's lead in opinion polls and energized Democratic voters with a series of high-energy rallies.

The interview on Musk's social media platform could allow Trump to reach a different audience than the conservative faithful who attend his rallies and watch his interviews on Fox News. However, similar events on the platform have been plagued by technical problems.

"Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation," Musk wrote on the platform, formerly known as Twitter.

The interview will be hosted live using Trump's official X account, his campaign said on Sunday. Trump's access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk's ownership of X after being suspended by the platform's previous owners following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supporters.

Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social social media platform, which was launched in February 2022. He has returned to X only once since his access was restored with a post in August 2023 appealing for donations and showing his Fulton County jail mug shot.

Musk could prove to be an unusual interviewer. The world's richest person backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since and endorsed the Republican following the attempted assassination of Trump in July.

Musk, who heads electric car company Tesla Inc, also started a fundraising organization to support Trump’s campaign. The political action committee is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws on gathering voter information.

Trump, a longstanding critic of electric vehicles, shifted gears after Musk's endorsement.

"I'm for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon endorsed me very strongly. So I have no choice," Trump said at an early August rally.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fein, campaigning in support of Harris, called Trump a "sellout."

The Biden administration has worked to popularize electric vehicles through tax breaks and other support as part of its broader goal of reducing carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

Republicans in Congress have opposed those subsidies. Senator J.D. Vance, Trump's vice presidential running mate, said the Biden policy merely subsidizes rich people who purchase the cars.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought it in 2022 and subsequently reduced content moderation that has resulted in a dramatic increase in hate speech, civil rights groups have said.

In the meantime, the entrepreneur has been involved in a swirl of additional controversies. He has falsely accused Biden and the Democratic Party of opening US borders to undocumented immigrants in a ploy to boost the number of potential Democratic voters. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections.

Musk in November 2023 endorsed an antisemitic post on X that said members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against white people. He defended himself, saying the user was speaking “the actual truth.” Musk has also attacked the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that works to fight antisemitism, accusing it, without evidence, of being responsible for a drop in advertising on X.

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France’s ‘Beautiful Dream’ Fades as Games Give Way to Political Crisis 

French President Emmanuel Macron gives thumbs up next to IOC president Thomas Bach (L) during the Closing Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Stade de France Stadium in Paris, France, 11 August 2024. (EPA)
French President Emmanuel Macron gives thumbs up next to IOC president Thomas Bach (L) during the Closing Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Stade de France Stadium in Paris, France, 11 August 2024. (EPA)
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France’s ‘Beautiful Dream’ Fades as Games Give Way to Political Crisis 

French President Emmanuel Macron gives thumbs up next to IOC president Thomas Bach (L) during the Closing Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Stade de France Stadium in Paris, France, 11 August 2024. (EPA)
French President Emmanuel Macron gives thumbs up next to IOC president Thomas Bach (L) during the Closing Ceremony of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games at the Stade de France Stadium in Paris, France, 11 August 2024. (EPA)

The Paris Olympics delivered a dazzling summertime success that charmed the world and reaffirmed French national pride. The hangover will be tough.

With Sunday's closing ceremony drawing a line under the sporting spectacle, President Emmanuel Macron must now deal with a self-created political crisis that he swept under the carpet until the Games were over.

Talks over government jobs and budget cuts loom - with voter anger sure to follow.

"Now we have to wake up from this beautiful dream," said Christine Frant, 64, at the Club France fan zone last weekend. "Such a shame we're going to return to our day-to-day routine, with no government, squabbles in parliament, while here it was all about joy, sharing."

Macron seemed to cast the entire fate of the Olympics into doubt when he called a snap legislative election just weeks before the Games were due to begin. Voters delivered a hung parliament.

Choosing a prime minister who can appease Macron's centrist camp, a leftist alliance and the far-right National Rally has proven tricky.

After days of political dealmaking that went nowhere after the July 7 vote, Macron declared a political truce for the duration of the Games, giving himself until around mid-August to name a prime minister and let political parties negotiate.

The mysterious sabotage on railway and telecoms targets at the start of the Games seemed like an ominous portent, but after that, the event carried on with no further security scares.

Macron decamped to his presidential retreat on the French Riviera, with a few incursions into Paris, including for a long hug with French judo titan Teddy Riner after he clinched his fourth career gold.

While many in France followed the tribulations of the Lebruns, two ping-pong-playing brothers, or cheered on star swimmer Leon Marchand, French politicians have been plotting a way out of the crisis.

Now, Macron will need to make a decision.

DECISION TIME

He has ignored the candidate painstakingly agreed on by the left-wing alliance, the New Popular Front, which came on top in the elections but has so far made no overtures to other parties to garner a majority.

Despite efforts to bolster her profile with media interviews, the chosen candidate Lucie Castets remains a political unknown.

"Who is she?" said Zahera Dakkar, 40, after watching the volleyball final at Club France. "I haven't followed politics for two weeks. The Games were an escape from all that."

Castets' hopes of the left taking Matignon, the prime minister's official residence, appear slim. Macron believes the vote delivered a National Assembly whose "center of gravity is in the center or the center-right," a source close to him said.

"We need a personality capable of talking to the center, the right and the left. From the socially-minded right to the left that care about law-and-order," said the source, who declined to be named to discuss the president's thinking.

Macron's eventual pick cannot appear to be a flunky, the source added, with an oppositional figure needed to give the government a "flavor of cohabitation".

Xavier Bertrand, a former conservative minister under ex-President Jacques Chirac who has had tough words against Macron but has collaborated constructively with his government in his northern region fiefdom, could be compatible, the source said.

Bernard Cazeneuve, a former prime minister under Socialist President Francois Hollande, who was in office at the time of the 2015 extremist attacks in Paris, could also work, the source said. Both men's offices did not return a Reuters request for comment.

BUDGET CHALLENGE

Whoever Macron names will face a tough job, with the parliamentary approval of the 2025 budget top of the in-tray at a time when France is under pressure from the European Commission and bond markets to reduce its deficit.

"If Macron tries to name a sort of rightist government, he will get no budget," said Eric Coquerel, the leftist head of the finance committee in parliament.

Macron's entourage is keen to use the Games, organized by a centrist president, a Socialist mayor and a conservative regional leader, as an example of what France can do when different sides come together.

His rivals want to make sure the president gets no credit, Senator Laure Darcos told Reuters.

Even if Macron's domestic fortunes remain bleak, the Games have bolstered his international standing.

Michael Payne, a former IOC marketing chief, said the president is seen from abroad as "the leader who delivered," but he believed Macron had made a major strategic mistake by calling the snap election before the Olympics rather than after.

At Club France, where families stood in line to take selfies with the Olympic torch or snapped up fluffy red mascots, it was hard to find anyone who wanted to talk politics.

"Please, no!" said Frant, a French flag around her neck.