Trump calls Elon Musk by wrong name as his biographer says the candidate is 'hyper-aware' voters are doubting his mental acuity

• Donald Trump mistakenly called Elon Musk by the wrong name at a rally on Saturday.
• The former president referred to the SpaceX CEO as "Leon" during a speech in Wisconsin.

Former president Donald Trump mistakenly called Elon Musk by the wrong name at a rally in Wisconsin on Saturday.

The former president referred to Musk as "Leon" while praising the SpaceX CEO over his plan to bring two stranded astronauts back from the International Space Station.

"Boeing had a little hard time, so they are going to save — Leon's going to send up a rocket," Trump said. "He looks forward to it. That's all he thinks about is things like that."

It comes after a former Trump biographer told the Guardian that the ex-president was "hyper-aware" that people were picking up on his mental slips.

Timothy O'Brien, the author of "TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald," spoke to the newspaper about Trump's rambling speeches and mental agility, which he said were coming under increasing scrutiny.

"The reason he's now offering these convoluted explanations of his speech patterns in his public appearances is because he's hyper-aware that people have noted that he's making even less sense than he used to," O'Brien said.

"What we're seeing now is a reflection of someone who's very troubled and very desperate," he added.

O'Brien was referring to Trump's response to criticism of his meandering speeches, which he said were part of a brilliant strategy he called "the weave."

"I do the weave. You know what the weave is? I'll talk about, like, nine different things that they all come back brilliantly together. And it's like, and friends of mine that are like English professors, they say: 'It's the most brilliant thing I've ever seen,'" he told a crowd in Pennsylvania.

"But the fake news, you know what they say, 'He rambled.' That's not rambling. What you do is you get off a subject, mention another little titbit, then you get back on to the subject, and you go through this and you do it for two hours, and you don't even mispronounce one word," he added.

The 2024 election race has seen both Trump's and President Joe Biden's mental fitness come under intense examination.

While Trump has been challenged over apparent errors such as repeatedly mixing up "Obama" and "Biden" during campaign speeches — something he has claimed he did on purpose — widespread concern following Biden's own mental lapses likely played a part in his decision to drop out of the presidential race.

In the run-up to that historic decision, Trump had sought to capitalize on any mistakes Biden made, and the president's struggles in a disastrous TV debate performance were seen by many as the final nail in the coffin.

At one point in the debate, after Biden seemed to stumble over his words, Trump said calmly: "I really don't know what he said at the end of that sentence. I don't think he knows what he said either."

But with the more coherent Vice President Kamala Harris now running against him, Trump faces a much stiffer rhetorical challenge, with his speeches seeming all the more chaotic.

"Now that he has a different, younger, more acute and vibrant political opponent, I think it does for him because he now often looks ridiculous or unhinged, unfocused or very, very old," O'Brien said.