Is Tucker Carlson's interview with Vladimir Putin the most watched video of all-time on Elon Musk's X?

In less than 24 hours, Tucker Carlson's controversial interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin has gotten millions of views. But how many people actually watched the 2 hour-long video on X, where Carlson has a partnership for his program, is actually not public information.

That's because in May of 2023, the platform removed video views from public view. Instead, all posts on the platform contain "views" which are actually just impressions, meaning how many times the post itself was seen by a user. It is not indicative of whether the user clicked on the post or watched the video associated with it. It also provides no indication as to how much of the two-hour video users engaged with.

As of this writing, the post on X with the video has over 125 million impressions on the platform.

While Carlson has a partnership with Elon Musk's social media platform, he also posts his videos on YouTube. His exclusive interview had more than 6 million views in the first 24 hours after it was posted. Views on YouTube are counted if viewers watch at minimum of 30 seconds of the video.

Why did Tucker Carlson interview Vladimir Putin? Did the interview reveal anything?

Carlson, a strident critic of Ukraine, said he wanted to sit down with Putin because "most Americans are not informed" on how the war in Ukraine is "reshaping the world." He falsely claimed that no Western journalists had requested interviews with the Russian leader.

Journalists and citizens in Russia face extreme free speech restrictions. They can be arrested for labeling Russia's invasion a "war"; instead, journalists have to refer to it as a "special military operation."  

During his interview, Carlson did not explicitly challenge Putin's many false assertions in the interview, including claims that his country did not attack Ukraine. The former FOX News commentator who has pushed conspiracy theories also did not push Russia's leader on his military's alleged war crimes or political repressions at home either.

Carlson also struggled to interrupt Putin and refocus on the conversation when the Russian president spoke for more than 20 minutes about the history of Eastern Europe. Putin also occasionally joked at his interviewee's expense.

The interview comes as momentum on the battlefield appears to have swung in Russia's favor while fresh U.S. aid for Ukraine remains uncertain in Congress. Polls show the majority of Americans believe the U.S. should be supporting Ukraine, but many are concerned it may be doing too much at the expense of domestic priorities.

When asked about the prospect for peace, Putin suggested halting military aid to the opposing nation would lead to the conflict ending, but didn't indicate what this would ultimately mean for the future of Ukraine.

"If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons," Putin said when asked by Carlson about the prospect for peace in Ukraine, referring to Western aid. "It will be over within a few weeks. That's it."