The interview ran 40 minutes behind schedule due to a technical glitch. Musk said the social network had experienced a “massive DDOS (distributed denial of service) attack,” preventing the chat from starting. However, the rest of X’s features appeared unaffected.

Trump tried to turn the incident into a positive, congratulating Elon Musk on having a great technical team. A counter on X showed that as many as 1.3 million people were listening at some point during the nearly two-hour conversation.

The technical issues were reminiscent of a similar event on X in May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suffered a chaotic start to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination due to problems on the X platform.

During the interview, the two billionaires repeatedly praised each other. While the Tesla boss praised Trump for his courage and for building a strong symbol of America by raising his fist after last month’s assassination attempt, Trump congratulated Musk for his willingness to fire workers who demanded better conditions.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, announced his support for Trump shortly after the assassination attempt, despite Republican opposition to state support for electric carmakers like Tesla. Musk supported President Joe Biden in 2020 but has since moved to the right.

US tech billionaire Elon Musk said he wanted a seat in the administration to help control government spending if former President Donald Trump is re-elected.

Elon Musk let Trump lead the conversation and did not challenge some of the former President’s allegedly inaccurate statements.

Mr. Trump also spent a lot of time talking about his favorite topics, including border control and anti-immigration, as he pledged to carry out the largest deportation of illegal immigrants in American history if elected.

 

“I think we are at a crossroads in the destiny of our country, of our civilization, and we need to go down the right path. I think you are the right path,” Mr. Musk told former President Trump at the end of the interview.

Former US President Donald Trump reappeared on social network X (formerly Twitter) on August 11 after last posting in August 2023. This time, Mr. Trump continuously updated many posts and videos that attracted attention, attracting many followers.

Former President Donald Trump’s accounts on page X and a series of other social networks were suspended after the riot on January 6, 2021 at the US Capitol building. His X account was only reopened after billionaire Elon Musk bought the social network.