US Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump has returned to social media platform X as he attempts to recover from a rough couple of weeks on the campaign trail.
On Monday, he marked the occasion by sitting down for a chat on Spaces with the platform's owner, Elon Musk, who has publicly endorsed Trump's re-election campaign.
The discussion finally began about 40 minutes late, after what Musk claimed was a “massive” cyberattack on the platform formerly known as Twitter. He said the audience would be limited and a recording would be shared afterward.
During a rambling chat that lasted nearly two hours, the two men discussed Trump’s Democratic rival Kamala Harris, the European Union, China, climate change, censorship and migration. The Republican used the opportunity to speak at length about some of his favorite topics and repeated his claims that he is the victim of a political vendetta, while Musk reiterated his support for Trump on multiple occasions.
After Trump claimed Harris was a “radical left-wing lunatic” and “worse than Bernie Sanders,” Musk responded: “It’s essential that you win the election for the good of the country.” Around 1.2 million people were listening.
In the hours leading up to Monday’s interview, Trump’s campaign billed it as “the interview of the century.” He also released a series of campaign videos attacking Harris and warning supporters about perceived threats from the political left.
Trump's campaign has taken a hit since Joe Biden stepped aside in favor of Harris, leaving Trump, 78, as the oldest candidate in the presidential race.
The vice president and her running mate, Tim Walz, have reinvigorated the Democratic campaign, appearing at a series of events in recent days. Recent polls have shown her leading Trump in key Midwestern states.
The Harris campaign dismissed the chat.
“The entire Trump campaign is in the service of people like Elon Musk and himself: self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out to the middle class and who can’t do a live stream in 2024,” he said in a statement posted on X after Trump and Musk finished speaking.
A long absence
Trump's social media broadside over X comes after a long absence from the platform, which used to be his preferred venue for online bullying.
But in 2021, in the final days of his presidency, Trump was banned from posting on the site.
Twitter executives had cited “the risk of further incitement of violence” as motivation for their decision: just two days earlier, on January 6, 2021, Trump supporters had attacked the US Capitol after the Republican falsely claimed that his 2020 election defeat was the result of voter fraud.
But in October 2022, Musk took control of the social media platform in a $44 billion deal. Shortly after, he made good on his promise to give Trump back control of the platform, restoring his Twitter account that November.
Twitter was the first major platform to lift its ban on the former president following the events of January 6.
Still, Trump has refused to use Twitter even after his reinstatement. Before Monday, he had made only one post since 2021, to commemorate the day he turned himself in at the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on Aug. 24, 2023.
The post included his mugshot and the all-caps message: “Election interference. Never give up!” He was charged with racketeering in the state for his alleged attempts to subvert the 2020 election, one of four criminal charges he faces.
Trump currently has more than 88.2 million followers on X, which he renamed in 2023.
A rocky patch
Since leaving X, Trump has largely communicated with his supporters through Truth Social, a platform owned by his namesake Trump Media & Technology Group.
But it only has 7.53 million users following its account there, compared to X's 88.9 million.
Trump's resurgence on the platform comes as he struggles to adjust to Harris as a Democratic nominee.
Musk revealed The interview took place on Sunday, exactly three weeks after Biden revealed he was withdrawing from the presidential race.
Biden endorsed Harris, who was officially confirmed as the Democratic nominee last week after the party held an online roll call vote among its delegates.
Since Harris assumed the Democratic mantle, Trump has seen his numbers drop in certain national polls.
While Trump previously led Biden, 81, in key states, a poll by The New York Times and Siena College released Aug. 10 found the Republican nominee had fallen behind Harris in the key states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
Trump trailed Harris, 59, by four percentage points in each of those states, with 46 percent support to her 50 percent. In a national matchup, Harris led with 48 percent support to Trump's 47 percent, according to the poll.
The Republican candidate has also struggled in recent media appearances, most notably at a July 31 conference for the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).
During his appearance at the conference, Trump sparked controversy by questioning Harris' identity as a Black and South Asian woman. He also attacked the moderator who asked the first question.
“I don't think I've ever been asked a question in such a horrible way,” he told moderator Rachel Scott of ABC News, to audible shock from the audience.
In a later question, when Scott asked about Harris's place on the Democratic ticket, Trump falsely suggested the vice president had concealed her black identity.
“She always had Indian ancestry. She was just promoting Indian ancestry. I didn’t know she was black until a few years ago when she became black, and now she wants to be known as black,” Trump said, in comments that have been widely criticized as racist.
NPR later compared the appearance to “a slow-motion car crash.”
Since then, Trump’s campaign has been in damage control. It promoted the hashtag #TrumpOnX ahead of Monday’s interview with Musk in an effort to boost viewership.
A spotlight for Musk
Monday's interview was also another opportunity for Musk, who has 194 million followers on Twitter, to exert his influence on American politics.
In his conversations with Trump, he frequently referred to “my opinion” on issues such as climate change and fossil fuels, and touted the “sexiness” of his Tesla electric cars. He also talked about the need for governments to reduce regulation, an issue Trump enthusiastically embraced.
With a net worth of more than $200 billion, Musk is considered the richest man in the world and controls companies such as Tesla and the space company SpaceX.
Musk, who previously supported Democrats like former President Barack Obama, has shifted to the right in recent years.
Following an assassination attempt on Trump on July 13, the businessman publicly offered his support to the Republican candidate, posting on X: “I fully support President Trump and look forward to his speedy recovery.”
Critics have accused Musk of using X as a springboard for right-wing extremism and of relaxing safeguards meant to curb the spread of misinformation on the platform. Musk, however, has presented himself as a defender of free speech.
Monday's interview is not the first time Musk has used his platform to interview a right-wing political candidate for the November election.
In May 2023, Musk hosted Ron DeSantis for a chat on X, as the Florida governor launched his Republican presidential campaign on the platform. But the stream was marred by false starts and glitches, which Musk attributed to “strain” on the servers.
Musk seemed aware that he wanted to avoid repeating the same mistake from Monday. The day before, he had posted that he was “going to run some system scaling tests tonight and tomorrow before the conversation.”
He also invited X users to send in their questions. “This is unscripted and unbounded in terms of topic, so it will be very entertaining.”
