Trump says society needs to 'cherish' and 'protect' Elon Musk

Society must come together to "protect" and "cherish" Tesla CEO Elon Musk like the walking Fabergé egg that he is.

So insisted Donald Trump today during a freewheeling CNBC interview that covered everything from Trump's best bud Tim Apple to how he's pretty sure Zuckerberg wants to run for president. But it was Trump's almost fatherly desire to coddle the Tesla CEO that perhaps most stood out.

"I was worried about [Musk] because he's one of our great geniuses and we have to protect our geniuses," Trump told interviewer Joe Kernen. "And we have to protect Thomas Edison, we have to protect all of these people that came up with originally the lightbulb, and the wheel, and all of these things."

Indeed. We do need to protect the people that came up with the wheel.

But Trump wasn't finished, as he had yet to fully swath the CEO in his loving embrace.

"[Musk is] one of our very smart people and we want to, we want to cherish those people," Trump insisted. "That's very important. But he's done a very good job."

Lest you think Trump was playing favorites, he also spoke fondly of Apple CEO Tim Cook.

"Apple, what do you think," asked Kernen. "You're friends. I've think you've seen Tim recently?"

"I am," replied Trump. "I like him a lot, I think we should do some encryption."

He then, of course, proceeded to suggest that maybe the U.S. government should do the opposite of some encryption?

"I think we should, uh, we should start finding some of the bad people out there that we can do with Apple," stammered the president.

Oh yeah, and then there were Trump's Zuckerberg comments.

"Well I met [Zuckerberg] and he told me that I'm number one in the world in Facebook," insisted Trump. "He sat down, he said, 'congratulations, you're number 1.'"

But that's not all!

"I head he was going to run for president," mused the number one man in the world in Facebook. "That wouldn't be too frightening I don't think, but he does have that monster behind him."

SEE ALSO: Technical savant Donald Trump gives Tim Cook iPhone design advice

On that last part, at the very least, we can all agree. Now, please excuse us while we finish our daily ritual of Musk cherishing and protecting — he has some wheels to come up with.