Trump’s interview with Musk on X platform hamstrung by tech issues
Donald Trump Twitter account displayed on a laptop screen and Elon Musk Twitter account displayed on a phone screen are seen in this illustration photo taken in Krakow, Poland on November 22, 2022. (Photo by Jakub Porzycki/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Donald Trump’s big return to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter did not begin as planned.
Trump and Elon Musk, X’s owner, were slated to have what the tech titan termed a "live conversation" at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. "Should be highly entertaining!" Musk posted ahead of the event.
But while more than 120,000 people joined the event hosted by Trump’s X account, many others received error messages and were unable to login ahead of the advertised live interview.
A message read, "Details not available" more than 15 minutes after the scheduled start time.
"I think most of the people that tuned in tonight were either very interested in what Elon Musk has to say and where he stands on things and of course he's already endorsed Donald Trump," political analyst Brian Sobel told KTVU. "Or people who support Donald Trump, and really wanted to hear from the former president tonight. I'd be surprised to find out that a whole lot of undecideds, for example, tuned in tonight."
The conversation was intended to serve as a way for the former president to reach potentially millions of voters directly. It was also an opportunity for X, a platform that relies heavily on politics, to redeem itself after some struggles.
Notably, in May 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used the platform as a way to officially announce his presidential bid, a disastrous rollout marred by technical glitches, overloaded by the more than 400,000 people who tried to dial in.
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Ahead of his conversation with Trump, Musk posted on the platform that X was conducting "some system scaling tests" to handle what’s anticipated to be a high volume of participants.
The coming chat also prompted a cautionary response from Europe. Thierry Breton, a French business executive and commissioner for internal market of the European Union, warned Musk of possible "amplification of harmful content" by broadcasting his interview with Trump. In a letter posted on X, Breton urged Musk to "ensure X’s compliance" with EU law, including the Digital Services Act, adopted in 2022 to address a number of issues including disinformation.
In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung urged the EU to "mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the U.S. Presidential election." He said the EU was "an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign."
Musk, who has described himself as a Democrat until a few years ago, endorsed Trump’s candidacy two days after the former president was wounded during an attempted assassination at a Pennsylvania rally last month.
Long before he endorsed Trump, Musk turned increasingly toward the right in his posts and actions on the platform, also using X to try to sway political discourse around the world. He’s gotten in a dustup with a Brazilian judge over censorship, railed against what he calls the "woke mind virus" and amplified false claims that Democrats are secretly flying in migrants to vote in U.S. elections.
Musk has also reinstated previously banned accounts such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump, who was kicked off the platform — then known as Twitter — two days after the Jan. 6 violence, with the company citing "the risk of further incitement of violence." By November 2022, Musk had bought the company, and Trump’s account was reinstated, although the former president refrained from tweeting until Monday, insisting that he was happier on his own Truth Social site, which he launched during the ban.
Hours ahead of his interview with Musk, Trump posted a two-and-a-half minute video to his X account, featuring video from his time in office, as well as audio of him saying one of his standard campaign lines referencing the legal cases that have mounted against him: "They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way, and I will never be moving."
But Trump’s audience on X is legions larger than on Truth Social, which became a publicly traded company earlier this year. Trump has just over 7.5 million followers on Truth Social, while his mostly dormant X account is followed by 88 million. Musk’s account, which will host the interview, has more than 193 million followers.
Trump’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message as to whether he would cross-post his interview with Musk via his own accounts, including on X.
The former president has most recently posted on X only once, with a photo of his mug shot after he surrendered at an Atlanta jail a year ago on charges he conspired to overturn his election loss in the state.
Musk blamed Monday's delay on a cyberattack. After the issues were resolved, the livestream gained at times 1.3 million listeners.
The wide-ranging conversation opened with the two discussing the assassination attempt on Trump.
"Not pleasant," Trump replied when asked what it was like for him. "I didn't know I had that much blood."
The conversation moved to illegal immigration and what Trump called Harris' failure to secure the border.
"Would it be accurate to say that you're supportive of legal immigration but that we also need to shut down illegal immigration," Musk asked.
"They have to come in legally, they have to be checked," said Trump. "Because look, Kamala was the border czar, now she's denying it."
On the subject of energy and climate change, Musk said we should eventually work toward a sustainable energy economy.
"I don't think we should vilify the oil and gas industry and the people that have worked very hard in those industries to provide the necessary energy to support the economy, and if we were to stop using oil and gas right now, we'd all be starving and the economy would collapse."
Trump slammed Harris for being worse than Senator Bernie Sanders.
"What she has done to California… and what she's done with crime, with cashless bail, our country has become a very dangerous place," Trump added.
The Harris campaign sent out a fundraising email Monday evening - saying in part:
"Right now, Elon Musk is interviewing Donald Trump live on Twitter (we’re not calling it "X"). It’s not enough that Musk has pledged to donate millions of dollars to help reelect Trump. He’s using his purchased platform -- one of the largest social media sites in the world -- to spread Trump’s unhinged and hateful agenda to millions of users."
KTVU contributed to this report.