Anika Begay
Elon Musk (left) and Donald Trump (right).
by David Swanson | Vincent Alban | Reuters
Elon Musk’s much-publicized interview with former President Donald Trump on social media platform X was quickly interrupted by technical issues within the first few minutes of its scheduled start time on Monday evening.
Social media users attempting to access the event, which was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET, reported being unable to join X’s livestream platform.
Shortly after 8:20 p.m., Musk, the billionaire CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, attributed the screen freezes to a cyberattack. Vscek was not immediately able to independently verify whether an attack had occurred, but other parts of X continued to function despite the glitches.
Musk said the company had tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners on Monday morning to prevent any technical errors and ensure X’s live streaming capabilities could handle the event.
As the evening wore on and the platform struggled to resolve the technical issue, Musk said the interview would continue at 8:30 a.m. ET with anyone who could join the stream. He added that “unedited audio” would be posted shortly thereafter.
After nearly an hour of troubleshooting, the conversation finally began around 8:45 p.m. ET. By X Spaces’ count, at least a million people watched the interview.
“This massive attack shows that there is a lot of resistance to the idea of people simply listening to what President Trump has to say, but I am honored to have this conversation,” Musk said.
In response to Vscek’s request for comment on the technical delay, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung referred to Musk’s Post X.
However, once the conversation began, Cheung congratulated Musk and Trump for causing the disaster, attracting so many people to Musk’s platform.
“WE ARE DESTRUCTED OF THE INTERNET!” Cheung said on X, accompanying it with a photo of Trump talking on speakerphone.
The glitch was reminiscent of the X 2023 glitch, which derailed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch announcement.
The interview was billed as a high-profile, media-friendly event aimed at helping Trump’s campaign rally support after a difficult three weeks since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race to endorse Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic nominee.
“I want to emphasize that this is a conversation and its purpose is simply to give a sense of how Donald Trump behaves in a conversation,” Musk said at the outset.
Trump then spent about 20 minutes describing the attempted assassination he survived in July in Butler, Pennsylvania, in which an audience member died at a rally.
Trump later told many of the same stories he loves to tell in public, about Russian President Vladimir Putin, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his views on NATO. He also made many of the same unfounded and debunked claims about immigration and crime that he usually makes on the campaign trail.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
