Users were able to access other parts of the site as normal, although many could not watch the live interview.
The broadcast ultimately began around 40 minutes late and drew in around 1.1m concurrent viewers. At one point, Mr Trump claimed as many as “60m people or something” were tuning in. X later said: “President Donald Trump’s Space post received 73m views.”
Mr Musk went on to blame the Republicans’ enemies for the issues impacting the livestream.
He said: “As this massive attack illustrates, there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say.”
The interview comes days after Mr Musk shared a fake Telegraph article to his millions of followers, which he later deleted.
The glitches that plagued the Trump interview followed a similarly troubled broadcast with his Republican rival Ron DeSantis in 2023. Mr Musk blamed those failures on overloaded servers.
Since his takeover of Twitter in 2022, Mr Musk, a prolific poster, has sacked thousands of staff in an effort to slash costs. He has emerged as the most vocal Silicon Valley backer of Mr Trump’s attempt to return to the White House.
Kamala Harris’s campaign issued a statement deriding the broadcast after it ended.
It said: “Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature, not a glitch, of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight on whatever that was on X.com.
“Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself – self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.”
X was contacted for comment.