The influential podcast host Joe Rogan has endorsed Donald Trump for president, writing on social media that his choice had been influenced by “the great and powerful Elon Musk”.
Musk “makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way”, Rogan wrote on X. “For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump.”
Rogan shared his endorsement along with a link to a nearly three-hour-long interview with Musk, posted on Monday.
Rogan, 57, described recently by Bloomberg as “widely accepted as the most popular podcaster on Earth”, has an overwhelmingly male audience. He recently interviewed Donald Trump on the show, and, as recently as last week, was negotiating for a sit-down with the Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris.
Trump’s interview on Rogan’s show ten days ago currently has 45m views on YouTube, while JD Vance’s interview has 14m views.
The great and powerful @elonmusk.
— Joe Rogan (@joerogan) November 5, 2024
If it wasn't for him we'd be fucked. He makes what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you'll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.
For the record, yes, that's an endorsement of Trump.
Enjoy the podcast pic.twitter.com/LdBxZFVsLN
Rogan is a former mixed martial arts commentator, comedian, and gameshow host whose show, The Joe Rogan Experience, is Spotify’s No 1 podcast offering.
In an era of distrust in traditional media outlets, Rogan’s outsider persona, and long conversations with famous and infamous guests, from Kanye West to Edward Snowden to Alex Jones, has won him a massive audience.
But Rogan’s views and interviews have also sparked condemnation, and even a boycott of Spotify, which reportedly signed a $100m deal in 2020 to host his podcast, and finalized a new multiyear deal, reportedly for $250m, earlier this year.
Over time, Spotify has reportedly removed past controversial episodes of Rogan’s show, including those featuring conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, and far-right extremists Milo Yiannopoulos and Gavin McInnes, the founder of the Proud Boys.
In January 2022, a group of 270 US doctors, scientists, professors, and other healthcare professionals wrote an open letter to Spotify, raising concerns about Rogan’s podcast and what they called its “concerning history of broadcasting misinformation, particularly regarding the Covid-19 pandemic”.
“Throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, Joe Rogan has repeatedly spread misleading and false claims on his podcast, provoking distrust in science and medicine. He has discouraged vaccination in young people and children, incorrectly claimed that mRNA vaccines are “gene therapy,” promoted off-label use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19,” the letter said.
Rogan had been previously called out by the White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci for telling his audience that young, healthy Americans did not need to be vaccinated against Covid.
In early 2022, musician Neil Young demanded that the streaming platform remove his music, arguing that “Spotify is spreading fake information about vaccines,” and citing Rogan’s show and his many claims about the coronavirus vaccine, as well as about Covid lockdowns. His actions prompted a wider boycott, with some artists weighing in on other aspects of Rogan’s show they found unacceptable, like some of his guest’s comments about race and about Black people in particular.
Spotify responded to the controversy by promising to direct listeners to accurate information about Covid-19, and by making its internal guidelines for its creators public.
In 2022, Rogan also publicly apologized for repeatedly using the n word on his show, an apology prompted by a compilation video of all the times the white host had used the offensive racial slur.
Rogan’s night-before-the-election Trump endorsement is not the first time one of his shows with Musk has made news headlines. Tesla shares suffered and some Tesla executives resigned in 2018 after Musk infamously smoked a joint on the live webcast of Rogan’s show in 2018.
Read more of the Guardian’s 2024 US election coverage:
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