US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump largely stuck to familiar campaign themes in a live X-ray interview with billionaire social media platform owner Elon Musk, which was initially plagued by technical problems.
The site showed the page was “unavailable” shortly after the scheduled start time of 10am AEST for some users, although more than 1.3 million people appeared to have successfully signed up after a 40-minute delay .
Musk – who recently became an influential supporter of the Republican presidential candidate – the technical problems were caused by a DDOS attack, saying it tested the system earlier in the day with eight million concurrent listeners.
DDOS stands for Distributed Denial of Service, which occurs when a site is flooded with traffic in an attempt to overwhelm the servers on which the site is hosted and thus make it inaccessible.
What was said in the Musk-Trump interview?
When the conversation finally began, Musk said that “the massive attack shows that there is a lot of opposition to people just listening to what President Trump has to say.”
In the United States it is a convention to sometimes refer to former presidents by their former titles.
Musk then asked Trump to tell his story and Trump complied, even though he had done so in July that he would only mention it once.
Trump described his survival as a “miracle” and said his campaign would return to the city where the rally took place in October.
Musk publicly endorsed Trump minutes after the assassination attempt.
The pair then discussed immigration, with Trump criticizing the performance of Democratic presidential nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris, who he called the U.S. “border czar” and “in charge” of the border.
but was tasked with addressing the “root causes” of migration from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Trump has said that, if re-elected, he will seek to deport one million illegal immigrants from the United States.
Musk has repeatedly said that immigrants from all over the world, not just South American countries, were coming to America from the southern border.
At the end of the conversation, Musk said that he “hadn’t been very political before” and that it was “absurd” that some portrayed him as “far-right.” He described himself as “historically a moderate Democrat.”
But he said he believed a second Trump presidency promised “an exciting future.”
“I think we are in big trouble with the Kamala administration,” Musk said.
“I think it is essential to win for the good of the country.”
How Elon Musk became a Donald Trump supporter
Trump and Musk haven’t always seen eye to eye.
Musk once criticized Trump for dismissing the challenge of climate change.
In June 2017, five months into Trump’s presidency, because the administration withdrew from the Paris Agreement, a landmark 2016 international treaty that aims to address climate change.
“Climate change is real,” Musk wrote at the time. “Leaving Paris is not good for America or the world.”
After Trump lost his 2020 reelection bid, Musk told Fortune magazine that he was “super excited” about President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda and optimistic “about the future of sustainable energy.”
But the tech billionaire – founder and CEO of electric car brand Tesla – has turned against Biden.
The president of the United States has long held a publicly pro-union position, while Musk has expressed anti-union views on several occasions. Biden also did not invite the Tesla owner to a 2021 electric vehicle summit.
Trump has long been a critic of electric vehicles, but he changed gear after receiving Musk’s endorsement.
“I’m for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon supported me strongly. So I have no choice,” Trump said at a rally in early August.
Trump’s troubled Twitter history
Trump used X, formerly called Twitter, during his political rise and presidency, but was banned after a mob of his supporters .
Musk reinstated Trump’s account after purchasing the platform in 2022, but the former president has only returned to posting once, instead preferring to share his thoughts without restrictions on his own platform, Truth Social.
Since buying Twitter and changing its name to
Trump has 88.2 million followers on X while Musk has 193.9 million.
Tuesday’s interview wasn’t the first time a major X event has encountered technical difficulties.
In May 2023, Musk hosted Trump’s Republican rival Ron DeSantis’ campaign launch on X, but the website crashed during the interview.
THE and derided by the Trump campaign.
Before Trump’s interview, Musk said he would test X’s system and posted two videos of him playing the game.
Some X users have reported seeing ads appearing in support of Trump.
X and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for information about whether they purchased pro-Trump ads.
