Bono has hit out at Elon Musk and the US authorities’s cuts to worldwide support on Joe Rogan’s podcast and a few of Rogan’s viewers are usually not pleased.
The U2 frontman appeared on The Joe Rogan Expertise on Friday (Might 30) on the day of the discharge of his documentary Bono: Tales Of Give up, which is streaming on Apple TV+ now.
In the course of the three-hour dialog, Bono took the chance to criticise the Trump administration, singling out Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity (DOGE), which oversaw the dismantling of the US Company for Worldwide Growth (USAID).
The singer, who has been a campaigner for humanitarian support for many years, cited a Boston College research that estimated that the cuts will trigger greater than 300,000 deaths around the globe.
“There’s meals rotting in boats, in warehouses – 50,000 tons of it,” Bono stated. “The individuals who knew the codes, who have been liable for distributing that support, have been fired. That’s not America, is it?”
Watch the complete interview above.
Rogan’s present has positioned itself on the centre of the US political dialog over the past 12 months, welcoming Donald Trump as a visitor within the days earlier than the 2024 presidential election and having Musk as a daily interviewee. Rogan additionally formally endorsed Trump on the eve of the election. He did invite Democratic nominee Kamala Harris to seem too, however she declined.
Bono’s feedback prompted an prompt response from Musk, with the Tesla CEO branding the singer “such a liar/fool” on X, occurring to say that “zero folks have died” because of the USAID cuts.
He’s such a liar/fool 🤦♂️
Zero folks have died!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) Might 31, 2025
South Park lampooned Bono as the most important shit on this planet. They have been proper.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 1, 2025
In a later trade, he stated: “South Park lampooned Bono as the most important shit on this planet. They have been proper.”
Musk stepped down from his position at DOGE final week after serving the utmost 130-day time period as a particular authorities worker with out Senate affirmation.
Bono’s look on Rogan incited various strongly destructive feedback from his common listeners, with one writing: “That man’s about as evil as they arrive Joe”. Others steered they’d be skipping the episode altogether, or that it could be “the primary time I look ahead to commercials”.
“The present no one anticipated and none of us needed,” wrote one other.
Bob Geldof just lately spoke to NME concerning the influence of Musk’s DOGE position on worldwide support. When requested whether or not one other Stay Assist could be attainable, he stated: “It’s completely different now. It’ll occur via one thing like this. How? I’ve no thought as a result of I don’t do social media. It’s an isolating know-how, in contrast to rock ’n’ roll which is a gathering know-how. That’s the issue. [Elon] Musk – that ketamine-crazed idiot, that sociopath – just lately stated that the good weak spot of Western civilisation is empathy. No Elon, the glue of civilisation is empathy. We’re within the age of the demise of kindness, and I object.
“To know Band Assist and Stay Assist, you then’ve acquired to know the brokers – not simply in music, however politics. Thatcher was in excelsius. It’s true that we would have liked to maneuver from an industrial to a service financial system, however the penalties have been brutal. You recognize: ‘There’s no such factor as society’, ‘greed is sweet’. I feel Stay Assist was a response to that. There’s no such factor as society? July 13, 1985, right here we fucking are – sure there’s such a fucking factor as society and greed is silly.
“We’re again to that. We’re again to a horrible selfishness.”
Tales Of Give up is a hybrid of live performance film and visible memoir, that includes stripped-back dwell performances from Bono’s one-man reveals at New York’s Beacon Theatre in 2023, in addition to spoken phrase passages from the singer’s 2022 autobiography, Give up: 40 Songs, One Story.
In a four-star evaluate of the movie, NME wrote: “As for the tales themselves, on movie, they’ve an additional layer of emotion, permitting the viewers to view each expression and impression on Bono’s face as he remembers consistently combating for his father’s approval within the native boozer or his “egocentric” wrestle with striving for greatness, nearly on the expense of his marriage. The truth that he does all of it with simply a few chairs, impressions and the odd sound impact is a testomony to his abilities as a storyteller.”
