Elon Musk (L) and Donald Trump (R).
David Swanson | Vincent Alban | Reuters
Elon Musk’s much-hyped interview of former President Donald Trump on the social media platform X was almost derailed early on by technical glitches within the first minutes of the scheduled begin time on Monday night.
Customers making an attempt to go browsing to the occasion, which was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET, reported that they may not be part of X’s livestream platform.
The billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO blamed a cyberattack for freezing the X platform. CNBC was not instantly in a position to independently confirm whether or not or not an assault befell, however different components of X continued working all through the glitches.
After almost an hour of troubleshooting, the dialog lastly started in earnest and went for greater than two hours. At varied factors, as many as 1.3 million individuals gave the impression to be watching the interview, in keeping with the X Areas tally.
“This large assault illustrates there’s plenty of opposition to individuals simply listening to what President Trump has to say,” Musk mentioned.
In response to CNBC’s request for touch upon the delay, Trump marketing campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung pointed to Musk’s X submit.
But after the dialog acquired underway, Cheung appeared to congratulate Musk and Trump for truly inflicting the crash themselves by drawing so many individuals to Musk’s platform.
“BREAKING THE INTERNET!” he mentioned on X, accompanied by a photograph of Trump speaking right into a cellphone on speaker.
Monday’s glitches have been paying homage to X’s technical catastrophe in 2023, which botched Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential marketing campaign launch announcement.
This time, the occasion was billed as a dialog between two of the world’s most influential individuals; one thing buzzy and doubtlessly news-making which may assist revive Trump’s marketing campaign.
The three weeks since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, now the Democratic nominee, have rattled Trump and his presidential marketing campaign.
Trump’s advisors have urged the president to undertake a extra disciplined, conventional marketing campaign script at public occasions: Set Biden apart, assault Harris on coverage and attempt to keep on message.
However Trump has not often chosen this route, and Monday was no exception.
US Vice President Kamala Harris smiles earlier than talking throughout an occasion honoring Nationwide Collegiate Athletic Affiliation (NCAA) championship groups from the 2023-2024 season, on the South Garden of the White Home in Washington, DC on July 22, 2024.
Brendan Smialowski | AFP | Getty Photos
Trump spent the primary half hour of the interview describing the tried assassination he survived in July in Butler, Pa., which claimed the lifetime of an viewers member at a rally.
Trump additionally advised among the basic tales he likes to inform in public: About his friendships with autocrats like Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean chief Kim Jong Un; his worries about nuclear energy, and his low opinion of NATO.
Trump additionally made most of the similar unfounded and debunked claims about immigration and crime that he sometimes makes on the marketing campaign path.
Many of the subjects have been acquainted floor for Trump. However operating a presidential marketing campaign towards Harris, 59, was nonetheless clearly very new to Trump, who spent the final two years operating towards Biden.
Over his two hours with Musk, the previous president talked about Biden by identify at the very least 24 separate instances. However Trump talked about Harris lower than half as a lot, simply 11 instances, in keeping with CNBC’s casual tally.
Amid his marketing campaign fashion critiques of the vp, nonetheless, one point out stood out.
About an hour and a half into the occasion, Trump started speaking a couple of drawing of Harris that seems on the quilt of Time journal.
“She appears like probably the most lovely actress ever to stay,” mentioned Trump. “Really, she appeared very very like our nice first girl, Melania” mentioned Trump, referring to his spouse of almost 20 years.
However after observing that the drawing didn’t look very very like Harris, relatively than transfer on, Trump returned to Harris’ appears.
“In fact, she’s a wonderful girl,” mentioned Trump. “So we’ll go away it at that, proper?”
