Elon Musk Hosts Donald Trump For A Bizarre, Glitch-Filled Interview On X

On Monday, after a 40-minute delay due to technical difficulties, X owner Elon Musk hosted former President Donald Trump for a bizarre two-hour interview on X, drawing over a million simultaneous listeners.

The interview marked Trump’s return to X after his 2021 ban, following Musk’s efforts to reinstate his account and encourage his renewed activity on the platform. By Monday night, Trump had gained around 900,000 new followers since resuming his activity on the platform.

However, the delay of the high-profile interview marks the latest setback for Trump’s campaign as it seeks to regain momentum amid the Democratic Party rallying around Vice President Kamala Harris and renewed doubts about X’s ability to manage major events.

As many X users faced difficulties loading the highly anticipated livestream on their devices, delaying its start, Musk attributed the disruption to a “massive” distributed denial of service attack – a common cyberattack that floods sites with malicious traffic to knock them offline. 

“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down,” wrote Musk on X. “Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.”

Trump’s campaign dismissed X’s technical glitches, attributing them to Chinese adversaries and labeling the former president as “a fighter.”

It remains unclear whether hackers were responsible for the “attack” or if the issue was simply due to an overwhelming number of users trying to listen to the conversation.

The technical delay marked Musk’s second setback while trying to launch a highly attended X Space event, following similar issues in May 2023 during a live audio conversation with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announcing his presidential run.

After the technical delay, Trump and Musk, who has endorsed him, engaged in a wide-ranging conversation on topics including energy policy, climate change, nuclear threats, immigration – where Trump promised the “largest deportation in U.S. history” – and federal government spending, with Musk suggesting a commission to identify potential cuts.

While Musk asked Trump only softball questions, allowing him to stick to his campaign talking points on immigration and the economy without challenge, he also used the interview to highlight his own political views, encouraging Trump to soften his rhetoric on immigrants while agreeing that immigration contributes to crime.

“If we have another four more years of open borders – and it’s going to be even worse than the last three-and-a-half years – I’m not sure we’ve got a country,” said Musk.

Trump then discussed surviving last month’s assassination attempt at his Pennslyvania rally, accused Democrats of a coup to remove President Joe Biden, commented on Harris’ Time magazine cover appearance, and critized Biden’s mental state.

The former president also stated that Jewish people who vote for Democrats should have their “heads examined.”

The two men also spent time praising each other, discussing their accomplishments and future plans.

Shortly after Trump explained the significance of Musk’s endorsement, Musk told him, “I think we’re at a fork in the road of destiny of civilization, and I think we need to take the right path, and I think you’re the right path.”

Throughout the interview, Trump’s speech occasionally sounded as if he had a lisp or was slurring his words, drawing online attention. When asked for an explanation, Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung replied, “It must be you hearing.”