LOS ANGELES: Elon Musk's much-talked-about interview with Donald Trump got off to a rocky start on Monday after what the controversial businessman said was a cyberattack on his social media platform.
What was billed as a “no holds barred” conversation began more than half an hour late, with many people unable to listen to it live, in an embarrassing setback for both men.
“It appears there is a massive DDOS attack on X. We are working to shut it down,” Musk, the world's richest man, wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The conversation between the two men was intended to help revive Trump's faltering campaign, which has faltered since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
Musk, who has said he has previously voted for Democrats, has thrown his weight and wealth behind Trump since a gunman tried to assassinate the Republican at a rally last month.
But the apparent technical difficulties — which came after Musk laid off much of his staff — also served as a reminder that the Tesla boss once backed Trump rival Ron DeSantis, whose campaign launch on the platform was also plagued by problems.
“We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners today,” Musk wrote.
Trump was banned from Twitter after a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in January 2021, but Musk reinstated him when he took control of the platform and renamed it.
The Republican ran several campaign ads under his name. @realDonaldTrump handle on Monday, as well as links to your website.
Musk, the world's richest person according to Forbes, has become a prominent voice in American politics but is accused of turning X into a megaphone for right-wing conspiracy theories.
He is one of the Democrats' fiercest critics, using his 194 million followers on X to attack liberal efforts to boost diversity and inclusion (what he calls the “woke mind virus”) and the White House's handling of the southern border.
He frequently spreads far-right misinformation about undocumented immigrants and voter fraud.
Trump, meanwhile, is struggling to change his stance in the face of growing enthusiasm and strong polling for Kamala Harris since she replaced Biden as the Democratic nominee.
The conversation was never expected to be challenging; the previously troubled relationship between the tech mogul and the Republican candidate has been transformed, following Musk's rise to hero status among young men aligned with Trump's views.
It is precisely this audience, which neither watches rallies nor tunes into conservative cable news channels, that Trump hopes to court.
Trump, 78, also participated in an interview last week with internet influencer Adin Ross, who has been repeatedly banned from the streaming site Twitch for policy violations.
'Greater responsibility'
X is juggling multiple federal investigations, giving Musk common cause with Trump, who faces more than a dozen felony charges over his efforts to overturn the outcome of the 2020 election.
Musk has increasingly focused on priorities shared with the Republican far right, expressing anger over alleged censorship of conservatives and spreading incendiary and false news about immigration.
A new analysis from the Center for Countering Digital Hate shows that Musk's false or misleading claims about the US election have been viewed nearly 1.2 billion times on Twitter.
The European Union, which is investigating X under laws requiring digital companies to adequately police online content, wrote to Musk on Monday to remind him of his legal duty to prevent “harmful” material from being spread on the platform.
“With a large audience comes greater responsibility,” the bloc's top digital official Thierry Breton posted on the platform, alongside the letter setting out Musk's obligations to combat illegal content and disinformation under EU law.
Musk mocked Breton, saying the official reminded him of a French character from the 1975 British comedy film “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”
He then responded again, this time with a meme based on the 2008 American comedy film “Tropic Thunder,” which conveyed an obscene message.
Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung accused the EU of election interference and told it to “mind its own business.”
“Let's be very clear: the European Union is an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign,” he said.
