Social media users are cringing at Sean Hannity’s fawning interview with Elon Musk, as the Fox News host who previously criticized electric vehicles spent nearly an entire minute thanking the world’s richest man for creating “the greatest car ever invented.”
Musk recently paraded his Tesla vehicles at the White House with President Donald Trump after the car company took a tumble in the stock market. While the Tesla CEO joined Fox News to discuss the daring rescue mission of his SpaceX company Tuesday, Hannity soon digressed.
“I think you know, it was pretty public that I bought one of your Teslas,” Hannity told the SpaceX CEO, adding, “It’s like the greatest car ever invented. It really is, and I’m not just saying that. It’s self-driving, it’s got 1,000 horsepower, it goes from 0 to 60 [mph] in 0.2 seconds.”
Musk had to correct Hannity to note his car goes from 0 to 60 mph in 2 seconds, laughingly stating that “it would kill you” to reach that speed in 0.2 seconds.
On Musk’s own social media platform, users torched the exchange as brazen promotion on a self-described news network.
“Hannity can’t even read his ad copy right,” one user wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, with another person commenting: “Imagine spending $50K+ on a car just to impress Elon Musk for one-second of acknowledgment.”
Others noted that the conservative pundit was a critic of electric vehicles — until Musk became a Republican darling. The tech billionaire is currently dismantling federal agencies through the Department of Government Efficiency in a purported aim to slash wasteful public spending.
Hannity agreed with Trump’s criticism of electric cars on Fox News in 2023. On the radio in 2024, he reportedly slammed Democrats for having people “convinced” they need one — and misrepresented a study to claim they’re bigger polluters than gas-powered cars.
“18 months ago, Hannity thought electric cars were the tool of the Devil,” wrote one X user, with another posting: “After complaining about EVs for years, the Republicans now want them.”
Tesla vehicles, charging stations and dealerships have been increasingly vandalized since Musk became a “special government employee” of the Trump White House, prompting the president to float the idea of prosecuting perpetrators as domestic terrorists.
While Hannity also praised Musk in the interview for SpaceX’s rescue of the NASA astronauts who had been stranded on the International Space Station for nine months, X users mocked the duo for veering offtrack — into the curious on-air promotion for Tesla.
Elon Musk during Fox News interview with Sean Hannity. (Photo: Fox News)
