Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump largely stuck to familiar campaign themes during a live interview with the social platform’s billionaire owner Elon Musk, initially beset by criticism. technical problems.
The site showed the page being “unavailable” shortly after the scheduled start time of 10am AEST for some users, although more than 1.3 million people appear to have managed to sign up after a 40 minute deadline.
Musk – who recently became an influential supporter of the Republican US presidential candidate – the technical problems were caused by a DDOS attack, claiming that he had 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 during the Musk-Trump interview?
When the conversation finally began, Musk said that “the massive attack illustrates that there is a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say.”
In the United States, it is common to sometimes refer to former presidents using their previous titles.
Musk then asked Trump to tell the story of his and Trump obliged, even though he had in July that he would only speak about it once.
Trump called his survival a “miracle” and said his campaign would run again in the city where the rally took place in October.
Musk publicly supported Trump just minutes after the assassination attempt.
The two then discussed immigration, with Trump criticizing the performance of Democratic presidential candidate and current Vice President Kamala Harris, whom he called America’s “border czar” and “responsible” of the border.
but it was charged with addressing the “root causes” of migration from the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.
Trump has said he would seek to deport a million illegal immigrants from the United States if re-elected.
Musk has repeatedly said that immigrants from all over the world, not just South American countries, are coming to America through the southern border.
At the end of the conversation, Musk said he had “not been very political before” and that it was “absurd” for some to describe 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 have huge problems with a Kamala administration,” Musk said.
“I think it’s essential that you win for the good of the country.”
How Elon Musk became a supporter of Donald Trump
Trump and Musk haven’t always seen eye to eye.
Musk once criticized Trump for rejecting 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 aimed at combating 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 re-election bid, Musk told Fortune magazine that he was “super excited” about President Joe Biden’s climate change agenda and optimistic “about the future of energy sustainable”.
But the tech billionaire – founder and chief executive of electric car brand Tesla – turned against Biden.
The US president has long publicly taken a pro-union stance, while Elon Musk has expressed anti-union views on several occasions. Biden also did not invite the Tesla owner to an electric vehicle summit in 2021.
Trump has long criticized electric vehicles, but he shifted gears after receiving support from Musk.
“I’m for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon has supported me very strongly. So I have no choice,” Trump said at a rally in early August.
Trump’s troubled Twitter timeline
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 ex-president has only returned once, preferring to share his thoughts unfettered on his own platform, Truth Social.
Since buying Twitter and changing its name to false on immigration.
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-rated event 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 mocked by the Trump campaign.
Before the Trump interview, Musk said he would test X’s system and posted two videos of himself playing.
Some X users reported seeing ads supporting Trump appear.
X and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for information on whether there had been a pro-Trump ad buy.
