Musk agrees to host presidential debate involving RFK Jr on X – who then calls out Trump and Biden

Elon Musk says that he’ll host a presidential debate involving Robert F Kennedy Jr on X, formerly Twitter, ahead of the 2024 US elections in November – with the independent candidate calling on Joe Biden and Donald Trump to join.

The president, 81, and his 77-year-old predecessor have already agreed to take the stage on 27 June for a highly-anticipated debate on CNN. It marks the earliest-ever general election debate in a presidential race.

Mr Trump and Mr Biden have also agreed to partake ABC’s televised debate on 10 September. There is a common theme among the two prime-time broadcasts: Mr Kennedy Jr is currently not on the guest list.

X’s CEO, Mr Musk, started an online back-and-forth after asserting that Mr Kennedy Jr “should be in the debate”.

The 70-year-old courted the tech mogul, asking: “Will you host one?” Mr Musk replied: “Sure.” No further details have been announced.

On Thursday, Mr Kennedy Jr noted that X was the right place for a debate to be held, claiming that its audience size is 100-fold that of CNN.

Mr Musk, once again responding concisely, writing on Thursday morning: “True.”

Now, the ‘We the People’ party leader, which he created in January this year, has called on Mr Trump and Mr Biden to join him on the social media debate.

“@realDonaldTrump, I know you’ve got the guts to do it. Do you want to call @POTUS or should I,?” Mr Kennedy Jr wrote on X on Wednesday. Neither have rsponded to the request.

While Mr Kennedy Jr hasn’t received an invite to the two debates set to be broadcast later this year, it may change if he meets the qualifying threshold for both ABC and CNN.

Rules state that he needs to attract 15 per cent support in four national polls. He currently has two of the four he needs