Elon Musk interview of Trump marred by technical issues

By Richard Cowan and Andy Sullivan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk finally got underway on Musk’s social media platform X on Monday evening, following a lengthy delay caused by technical problems that kept many users from accessing the live stream.

Musk began the event at 8:42 p.m. (0042 GMT Tuesday), more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time. He blamed the difficulties on a distributed denial-of-service attack, a type of cyber attack in which a server or network is flooded with traffic in an attempt to shut it down, though his claim was not confirmed.

More than 1 million people were listening as the conversation started, according to a counter on X.

“Congratulations on breaking every record in the book,” Trump said, an apparent reference to the number of people who tried to tune into their conversation.

Trump sounded at times as if he was speaking with a lisp, many listeners on X pointed out. Some said it made him sound like a cartoon, others suggested it could be due to audio compression issues.

The technical problems recalled 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 glitches on the platform.

The hour-long broadcast lost sound for extended stretches, and thousands of users were either unable to join or were dropped. DeSantis ultimately lost the nomination to Trump.

At the time, Trump mocked DeSantis on his own, social media platform, Truth Social. “My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!)” Trump posted, “Yours does not.”

Ahead of Monday’s event, Musk had written: “Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation.” X did not respond to requests for details or evidence of the alleged cyberattack.

Musk opened the event by asking Trump to describe his attempted assassination on July 13, in which his ear was struck by a bullet.

Musk, the world’s richest person, endorsed Trump shortly after the shooting. He backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since.

TRUMP BACK ON X

The interview was a fresh opportunity for Trump to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is facing new headwinds.

His Democratic rival for the Nov. 5 election, Vice President Kamala Harris, has erased Trump’s lead in opinion polls and energized Democratic voters with a series of high-energy rallies. Harris’ momentum could get another boost from the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago.

Trump returned to X, formerly known as Twitter, on Monday morning for the first time in a year, posting a video highlighting his claim without evidence that the four criminal prosecutions he faces are politically motivated.

He quickly followed with a half-dozen other posts, reviving an account that served as a main method of communication in previous campaigns and his four years in the White House, including his followers’ Jan. 6 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Trump’s last X message before Monday was posted in August 2023 appealing for donations and showing a mug shot taken after he was booked at an Atlanta jail in relation to felony charges tied to his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat in Georgia.

Trump’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk’s ownership of X after being suspended by the platform’s previous owners following the Jan. 6 attack, citing concerns he would incite violence.

Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social platform, which was launched in February 2022, but his posts there reach a much smaller audience than on X.

The interview on Musk’s social media platform allows Trump to reach a different audience than the conservative faithful who attend his rallies and watch his interviews on Fox News.

Some X users also reported seeing advertisements pop up supporting Trump. X and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for information on whether there had been a pro-Trump ad buy.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought it in 2022. X earlier this month sued a global advertising alliance and several major companies, accusing them of unlawfully conspiring to boycott the site and causing it to lose revenue.

MUSK BACKS TRUMP

Musk, who heads electric car company Tesla (NASDAQ:), has started an external super PAC spending group to support Trump’s campaign. The political action committee is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws on gathering voter information.

Trump, a longstanding critic of electric vehicles, shifted gears after Musk’s endorsement.

“I’m for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon endorsed me very strongly. So I have no choice,” Trump said at an early August rally.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fein, campaigning in support of Harris, called Trump a “sellout.”

The Biden administration has worked to popularize electric vehicles through tax breaks and other support as part of its broader goal of reducing carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

Republicans in Congress have opposed those subsidies. Senator JD (NASDAQ:) Vance, Trump’s vice presidential running mate, said the Biden policy merely subsidizes rich people who purchase the cars.

Musk has been involved in a swirl of additional controversies. He has falsely accused Biden and the Democratic Party of opening U.S. borders to undocumented immigrants in a ploy to boost the number of potential Democratic voters. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in federal elections.

Both Trump and Musk have amplified false claims about voter fraud, which is virtually nonexistent in the U.S.

Musk in November 2023 endorsed an antisemitic post on X that said members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against white people. He defended himself, saying the user was speaking “the actual truth.”