Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk finally began on Musk’s social media platform X on Monday evening after a long delay due to technical problems which prevented many users from accessing the live stream.
Musk, a Trump supporter, started the event at 8:42 pm (0042 GMT on Tuesday), more than 40 minutes later than scheduled. He blamed the outage on a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which a server or network is flooded with traffic in an attempt to shut it down, though his claim was not verified.
According to a counter on X, more than 1.3 million people were listening to the conversation for about 45 minutes.
Trump tried to turn the problems into a positive one and congratulated Musk for the large number of people trying to connect with him.
Many listeners on X reported that the former president sometimes sounded like he had a lisp. Some said it made him sound like a cartoon character, while others said it could be due to audio compression issues.
The technical problems were reminiscent of a similar incident on X in May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis faced chaotic start to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination due to glitches on the platform.
At the time, Trump mocked DeSantis on his social media platform Truth Social. “My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger and working (true!)” Trump posted, adding, “Yours does not.”
Ahead of Monday’s event, Musk wrote: “I’m going to be doing some system scaling tests tonight and tomorrow before the talk.” X did not respond to requests for details or evidence of the alleged cyberattack.
Musk spent much of the early part of the interview praising Trump for his bravery during the near-fatal attack on him on July 13, when he was shot in his ear.
Musk, the world’s richest man, announced his support for Trump shortly after the shooting. He had backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has since moved to the right.
Trump said he plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the attacks, for a rally in October.
As the conversation progressed, Trump offered a mix of grievances, hyperbolic claims, and personal attacks, with Musk offering occasional encouragement.
Trump claimed, without evidence, that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he were still president, and he praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un — all authoritarian strongmen — saying they are “at the top of their game.”
He also expressed anger that Vice President Kamala Harris was bumped up from Biden on the Democratic ticket.
“She hasn’t given an interview since this whole scam started,” Trump said, falsely claiming that Biden’s cancellation from the ticket was a “coup.” Trump had been leading Biden in several battleground states that could be crucial to the outcome of the Nov. 5 election, but he is now trailing Harris in some of those same states.
In an interview away from policy details, Trump also praised Musk for firing employees.
“You’re the best cutter. I mean, I see what you do. You go in, you just say: ‘Do you want to quit?’ They go on strike – I won’t name the company – but they go on strike. And you say: ‘Never mind, you all leave.'”
Trump back on X
The interview provided Trump with an opportunity to grab headlines at a time when his campaign is facing new challenges.
Harris has chipped away at Trump’s lead in opinion polls and energized Democratic voters with several high-energy rallies since replacing Biden as the party’s nominee three weeks ago. Her momentum could be further boosted by next week’s Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
Trump returned to X, formerly known as Twitter, for the first time in a year with multiple posts on Monday, reviving an account that served as his main method of communication in previous campaigns and his four years in the White House, including during the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol by his followers.
Trump’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month after Musk took over ownership of X, after it was suspended by the platform’s previous owners following the January 6 attack, saying he would incite violence.
Trump frequently posts on his Truthout social platform, which launched in February 2022, but his posts there reach a much smaller audience than those on X.
Musk endorses Trump
Musk, the head of electric car company Tesla, has repeated Trump’s false claims about voter fraud and Biden’s immigration policies.
Musk has launched an outside super PAC expenditure group to support Trump’s campaign. The political action committee is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws on collecting voter information.
Trump, a longtime critic of electric vehicles, shifted his stance following Musk’s endorsement.
“I’m for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon has endorsed me very strongly. So I have no choice,” Trump said at a rally in early August.
Sean Fein, the president of the United Auto Workers who is campaigning in support of Harris, called Trump a “sellout.”
The Biden administration has worked to popularize electric vehicles through tax breaks and other aid as part of its broader goal of reducing carbon emissions that cause climate change.
Republicans in Congress, including Trump’s fellow senator J.D. Vance, have opposed these subsidies.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
