Editor's Note: The Economist has issued repeated copyright claims on its interview with Elon Musk posted by social media accounts on multiple platforms (X.com, YouTube, etc.) to have the full interview taken down. A partial clip has replaced the full interview below.You come at the X trolling king, you better not miss. And unfortunately for The Economist, all of cyberspace saw its editor-in-chief get torn to shreds in a debate battle with the world’s richest man. X.com The Economist editor-in-chief Zanny Minton Beddoes tried to box X owner Elon Musk in on a number of issues that she twisted into cudgels against him (DOGE cuts, likeability, Islam, etc.) during a July 23 interview. But Musk just smacked her pious line of questioning down for the leftist drivel that it was over and over again. Arguably the most entertaining part of the interview was when Beddoes sneered to Musk that “people loathe you.” The cheeky Musk just spun it back around on her and her colleagues in the media: “I don't care. The fact that a quarter billion people follow me means a lot more people like me than don't. And I think a lot more people hate you and the media than you realize!” Once Musk flipped the script, it was game over: “Do you realize the media is despised? Do you realize that the favorable view of journalists is like 15 percent? So the shoe is on the other foot. They hate you! They hate you far more than they hate me.”