Tech problems mar launch of Trump-Musk interview

“Here’s to an exciting, inspiring future that people can look forward to and be optimistic and excited about what happens next,” Mr Musk said.

The conversation got off to a less auspicious start.

More than 20 minutes into when the conversation was actually due to begin, as many users struggled to access the livestream, Mr Musk blamed “a massive DDOS attack on X” for the problems in a post.

Distributed denial of services attacks – or DDoS attacks – are attempts to overload a website to make it hard to use or inaccessible.

Once the conversation between the two men began, Mr Musk said the alleged cyber attack showed there is opposition in the US to hearing what Trump had to say.

It is not clear what caused the technical problems with the X audio conversation or who may have been behind any alleged attack.

“A DDoS attack sends a very large number of signals to an online target to disrupt it,” Anthony Lim, Director of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies in Singapore, told the BBC.

“It is unlikely it would affect only one single service or feature on a website.”

Mr Lim added that it is possible that a large number of people trying to listen could have temporarily crashed the service.

Mr Musk said in a subsequent post that the system was tested with “8 million concurrent listeners” before his live chat.

During the conversation, X Spaces showed about one million people listening in.

The glitchy beginning was reminiscent of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ entry into the White House race in May 2023, which was held on X and saw the livestream malfunction.

The conversation on X comes as Trump, the former president and Republican presidential nominee, is trying to reset his re-election campaign.

Opinion polls suggest that the Democratic nomination of Vice-President Kamala Harris has tightened the close race for the White House.

The Harris campaign is riding a wave of momentum after she became the Democratic standard-bearer when President Joe Biden dropped out of the race last month.

Next week, Ms Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Governor Tim Walz, could get a further bump from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

The Trump campaign has been needling Ms Harris for not doing interviews and for taking few questions from reporters since accepting the nomination last month.

On Monday, Trump said “it’s nice to have a forum like this” on X, where he could speak at length.

Mr Musk, whose platform hosted the event, has become an increasingly influential voice in politics.

He has more than 190 million followers on X, where he regularly engages in political controversies.

He has also recently become involved in a new political committee supporting Trump’s campaign.