Trump’s interview

 Trump’s interview with Musk turns into another chaotic disaster on X.

Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump arrives Friday at a campaign rally in Bozeman, Montana.

Elon Musk promised entertainment but delivered technical difficulties instead.

He had planned to host GOP nominee Donald Trump for a “Live on X” interview, formerly known as Twitter Spaces, at 8 p.m. However, for the second time in the 2024 presidential election, the social media platform experienced glitches, preventing many users from tuning in to the interview.

Musk posted that “there appears to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down,” and mentioned that he might continue the interview with a smaller audience. DDOS stands for “distributed denial of service.”

The interview began roughly 45 minutes late.

The flurry of posts about technical difficulties mirrored Musk’s earlier X Live event with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who launched his Republican presidential campaign during a live interview with Musk on the platform. Similar to Trump’s event, the site’s audio-only livestream portal crashed.

“I’m assuming all the Trump supporters who mocked DeSantis for his Twitter Space crashing with Musk will do the same here. LOLOLOLOL,” conservative commentator Erick Erickson wrote, adding a clown face emoji.

Before the event with Trump, Musk had posted that he was “going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance.” However, these precautions couldn’t prevent the platform from crashing.

While some X users managed to access the livestream portal, Bloomberg’s Stephanie Lai noted, “We’re ten minutes in and there is still background music playing.”

Many other users couldn’t access the event at all, encountering either a gray-toned webpage where the portal usually appears or an “unavailable” notification on the mobile app.

Trump’s campaign spokesperson claimed that the GOP nominee and Musk were “breaking the internet.”

Musk’s interview with Trump was intended to be the third in a series with 2024 presidential candidates who have caught the tech mogul’s attention this year. However, Musk has now committed to fully supporting Trump’s third campaign, offering his platform on X and potentially boosting Trump’s reelection chances with his personal fortune and the mobilization of his loyal online followers.

When the interview finally began, attracting about 1 million viewers, Trump and Musk discussed the assassination attempt that Trump survived before shifting to attacks on President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who is now the Democratic nominee.

During the freewheeling conversation, Musk frequently agreed with Trump on topics such as immigration, inflation, and crime. Both men also wandered into discussions about the criminal cases Trump is facing and ongoing foreign conflicts where the U.S. is providing aid.

“That war had zero chance of happening if I was there,” Trump said, referring to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, blaming “this stupid administration” for allowing inflation to occur.

Trump also criticized Harris for her recent pledge in Nevada to eliminate taxes on tips—a proposal he originally floated at a rally in Las Vegas in June. He further attacked Harris over her role as border czar in Biden’s administration.

“She was the border czar, and now she’s trying to distance herself from it, but you can’t let them get away with their disinformation,” Trump said of Harris.

Trump also commended Musk for his tough approach to business, particularly in handling strikes at his companies.

“You walk in and say, ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike. I won’t name the company, but they go on strike and you say, ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone. You’re all gone,’” Trump said. “And you are the greatest.”

Musk has previously donated to both Republicans and Democrats, as disclosed to the Federal Election Commission. His last reported political donation was in November 2020, when he contributed to both Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Sen. Chris Coons (D-Del.), among others. In the previous midterms, Musk donated $33,900 each to the Republican and Democratic House campaign committees.

Now, the billionaire is supporting a new super PAC to back Trump, where he may make his first political contributions of the 2024 election cycle. America PAC is expected to file its first financial disclosures in October.

“She’ll be worse than him,” Trump said of Harris. “She’s a believer in the radical left, and he wasn’t.”

“I think you’re right,” Musk responded.