Anthony Albanese says relationship with Donald Trump off to a ‘positive start’ but dislikes Elon Musk’s X

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says he isn’t a fan of Elon Musk’s version of Twitter and doesn’t look at X, while lamenting how political discourse has become “much more aggressive” and personal.

But the Prime Minister said his relationship with President-elect Donald Trump was off to a “positive” start and wasn’t alarmed by his close ties to Mr Musk, also the chief of Tesla and now a member of Mr Trump’s cabinet.

Mr Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton have been jostling for the title of who is better placed to have a productive relationship with Mr Trump, amid concern he could slug Australian goods with tariffs as part of a tough trade policy.

In a wide-ranging interview with The Nightly, in which he was asked about concerns around Mr Musk using his platform to bat for the Trump administration, Mr Albanese said that while he was not familiar with Mr Musk’s posts “a lot of the material that’s on social media is not healthy and isn’t constructive”.

“I look at some of the things that were said on my feed . . . I tend not to look at X, I look at some of the comments on Instagram and they are nasty.

“People should be sceptical about some of the things that are said. It’s one of the challenges of modern society, is how we deal with technology.”

Mr Albanese pointed to the Government’s recent move to ban social media for kids under 16 as a response to the growing environment of disinformation.

Separately, the Government in December said it would introduce a tax on social media companies that could be used to fund Australian news media.

The parent companies of Facebook, Google and Tiktok face paying hundreds of millions of dollars to the Government unless they strike fresh deals with media companies to pay for news content.

“I think in general political discourse has become much more aggressive, much more personal and that’s not confined to social media,” Mr Albanese said.

“That is unfortunate that that has occurred. I think people should be able to have political discussion in a way that is not abusive and doesn’t seem to denigrate who people are.”

Mr Albanese didn’t back down on his previous comments, declaring President Trump had “encouraged” a “violent insurrection” on Capitol Hill, but said he accepted the outcome of the US election and would work “constructively” with the second Trump administration.

“We had a very positive and constructive discussion”, he said.

“Ours is a relationship between nations based on common values to great democracies and I accept the whole point is that you should accept democratic outcomes.”

Mr Dutton on Thursday told east coast media it was “comical” to think Mr Albanese would be a better global partner for Mr Trump than he would be, after the Prime Minister accused him of not cultivating relationships with other leaders and highlighted his close tied with those in the Indo-Pacific.

The Opposition Leader told The Australian he had already worked with Mr Trump’s first administration and accused Mr Albanese of failing to engage with Mr Trump since his election victory in November.