Joe Rogan shares how YouTube's handling of Donald Trump podcast infuriated Elon Musk: "I'm sure it was a mistake"
Joe Rogan's interview with Donald Trump is now on X, in addition to Spotify and YouTube. Evidently enough, this came to be as Elon Musk was infuriated with YouTube's attempts at curtailing the reach of the podcast episode.
During episode #2220 of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, the UFC commentator told his guests Francis Foster and Konstantin Kisin that people were having trouble searching for the Trump episode on YouTube.
Rogan stated that only short clips from the segment were showing up on the search but not the full episode. The podcaster then proceeded to sarcastically call out the website, suggesting it was probably a "mistake" on their part, before explaining how Elon Musk intervened to get the segment on X, to bolster its reach:
"Well, what's interesting is something happened. I'm sure it was a mistake at YouTube, where you couldn't search for it. I'm sure it was a mistake, there is no way that was on purpose [Rogan said comically]... In the meantime Elon [Musk] was furious. So Elon contacted Daniel Ek [CEO] at Spotify and they put it on X as well. So now it's on X. Now it has way more views."
Check out Joe Rogan's comments below (51:53):
Rogan added that it was impossible to suppress information in this day and age and people were going to find out if the media tried to forcefully curtail certain pieces of information.
The JRE episode featuring Trump has now garnered over 42 million views on YouTube, in addition to 19 million views on X.
When Elon Musk told Joe Rogan why he bought X
It comes as little surprise that Elon Musk advocated for Joe Rogan's Donald Trump interview to be put on X, after sensing efforts to curtail its reach. Preventing the suppression of information was one of the prime objectives that led the tech billionaire to acquire Twitter (now X) in a multi-billion deal in 2022.
During an appearance on episode #2054 of the JRE, Musk stated that the Twitter acquisition was made to prevent the platform from weaponizing information and preclude any dissonance in discourse. Musk elaborated:
"I was worried about it [Twitter] having a corrosive effect on civilization... Where it has effectively given information a weapon. An information technology weapon to propagate what is essentially a mind virus to the rest of Earth and the outcome on the mind virus is very evident if you walk around the streets of downtown San Francisco, it's the end of civilization... Well, in order for the mind virus to propagate it must suppress opposing viewpoints."
Check out Elon Musk tells Joe Rogan why he acquired X below (0:33):