Elon Musk’s highly anticipated interview with former President Donald Trump on the X platform was marred by technical glitches. The conversation, which was supposed to start at 8 p.m. EDT, experienced a massive denial-of-service attack, causing people to be unable to join the audio conversation. It was unclear whether the attack was malicious or simply due to an overwhelming number of people trying to listen in.
Despite the technical issues, Musk had been promoting the event earlier in the day, referring to it as a conversation rather than an interview. He claimed that X had successfully tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier that day. By the time the interview eventually began at 8:42 p.m., there were approximately 1.3 million people listening in, setting a new record for the platform.
X has faced numerous technical challenges since Musk took over the company, leading to disruptions in service. Musk has made significant changes to the staff, including letting go of engineers responsible for maintaining the site’s functionality. This has resulted in a number of issues such as server strain during high-profile events like political interviews.
Trump had previously ridiculed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis during his primary campaign launch on X in May 2023. The event was plagued by technical difficulties, including server strain and users experiencing disruptions. Despite these challenges, Trump congratulated Musk on the record-breaking number of people attempting to join the interview with him.
Following his ban from social media platforms in 2021, Trump returned to X on Monday to promote his interview with Musk. Trump has since launched his own social media site, Truth Social, but continues to engage with his followers on X. The interview with Musk attracted significant attention, despite the technical issues that persisted throughout the conversation.
