Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s interview with billionaire entrepreneurElon Musk finally got underway on Musk’s social media platform X, following a lengthy delay caused by technical problems that kept many users from accessing the live stream.
Musk began the event at 8:42pm (1.42am Irish time Tuesday), more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time. He blamed the difficulties on a distributed denial-of-service attack, a type of cyber attack in which a server or network is flooded with traffic in an attempt to shut it down, though his claim was not confirmed.
More than 1 million people were listening as the conversation started, according to a counter on X.
“Congratulations on breaking every record in the book,” Mr Trump said, an apparent reference to the number of people who tried to tune into their conversation.
Mr Trump sounded at times as if he was speaking with a lisp, many listeners on X pointed out.
The technical problems recalled a similar event on X in May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suffered a chaotic start to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination due to glitches on the platform.
The hour-long broadcast lost sound for extended stretches,and thousands of users were either unable to join or were dropped. Mr DeSantis ultimately lost the nomination to the former president.
Ahead of the event, Mr Musk had written: “Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of theconversation.” X did not respond to requests for details or evidence of the alleged cyberattack.
The South African opened the event by asking Mr Trump to describe his attempted assassination on 13 July, in which his ear was struck by a bullet.
Mr Musk, one of the world’s richest people, endorsed Mr Trump shortly after the shooting. He backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since.
Trump back on X
The event was a fresh opportunity for Mr Trump to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is facing new headwinds.
His democratic rival for the 5 November election, US Vice President Kamala Harris, has erased Mr Trump’s lead in opinion polls and energised democratic voters with a series of high-energy rallies. Ms Harris’ momentum could get another boost from the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago.
Mr Trump returned to X for the first time in a year earlier, posting a video highlighting his claim without evidence that the four criminal prosecutions he faces are politically motivated.
He quickly followed with a half-dozen other posts, reviving an account that served as a main method of communication in previous campaigns and his four years in the White House,including his followers’ Jan. 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
Mr Trump’s last X message beforehand was posted in August 2023 appealing for donations and showing a mug shot after he was booked at an Atlanta jail in relation to felony charges tied to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.
The republican candidate’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Mr Musk’s ownership of X after being suspended by the platform’s previous owners following the 6 January attack, citing concerns he would incite violence.
Mr Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social platform, which was launched in February 2022, but his posts there reach a much smaller audience than on X.
The interview on Mr Musk’s social media platform allows the former president to reach a different audience than the conservative faithful who attend his rallies and watch his interviews on Fox News. However, similar events on the platform have been plagued by technical problems.
“Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation,” Mr Musk wrote on the platform,formerly known as Twitter, ahead of the event.
Some X users also reported seeing advertisements pop up supporting Mr Trump. X and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for information on whether there had been a pro-Trump ad buy.
Advertisers have fled X since Mr Musk bought it in 2022. X Earlier this month sued a global advertising alliance and several major companies, accusing them of unlawfully conspiring to boycott the site and causing it to lose revenue.
Musk’s shift right
Mr Musk could prove to be an unusual interviewer. The world’s richest person backed US Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since and endorsed the republican following the attempted assassination of Mr Trump in July.
The South African-born entrepreneur, who heads electric car company Tesla, also started an external super PAC spending group to support Mr Trump’s Campaign. The political action committee is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws on gathering voter information.
The event was seen as a fresh opportunity for Mr Trump to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is facing new headwinds.
Mr Trump, a longstanding critic of electric vehicles, shifted gears after Mr Musk’s endorsement.
Mr Musk has been involved in a swirl of additional controversies. He has falsely accused Mr Biden and the Democratic Party of opening US borders to undocumented immigrants in a ploy to boost the number of potential Democratic voters.Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections.
Both Mr Trump and Mr Musk have amplified false claims about voter fraud, which is virtually nonexistent in the US.
Mr Musk in November 2023 endorsed an antisemitic post on X that said members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against white people. He defended himself, saying the user was speaking “the actual truth.”
The X CEO has also attacked the Anti-Defamation League, a nonprofit that works to fight antisemitism, accusing it, without evidence, of being responsible for a drop in advertising on X.