(NewsNation) — A conservation between former President Donald Trump and Tesla founder Elon Musk on X was delayed by tech issues Monday, which Musk blamed on a cyberattack.
“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later,” Musk posted.
It also represents a return to X for the former president, who has subsequently posted on the platform.
The platform, then known as Twitter, was a big part of Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and his entire presidency.
Trump posted a link to the Spaces where the conversation would occur just before 8 p.m., but the event had not started as of 8:30 p.m. More than 700,000 users had joined as of 8:30 p.m.
The conversation finally began at 8:42 p.m. with Musk acknowledging the delay.
“As this massive attack illustrates, there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say,” Musk said.
Trump congratulated Musk “on breaking every record in the book tonight” with the number of people trying to get in to listen.
The technical problems were reminiscent of when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis attempted to use Spaces to launch his 2024 presidential bid. Technical issues also plagued that, as the call went in and out for more than 20 minutes before Musk ended the original Spaces and attempted to begin a new one.
Musk asks Trump about assassination attempt
Musk opened by asking Trump about the assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally last month.
“I didn’t know I had that much blood,” Trump said of the shooting, while also saying it was the “best alternative you could think about” as he wasn’t more gravely injured.
Following the shooting, Trump said, “I’m a believer, now. I’m more of a believer in God, I think.”
Trump says illustration of Harris looks like Melania
Trump likened the recent Time magazine cover illustration of Harris to another highly visible woman adjacent to American politics: his own wife.
“She looked very much like our great first lady, Melania,” Trump told Musk, as they discussed the cover image of Monday’s issue.
Time’s new cover story on Harris features the phrase, “Her Moment,” alongside a black-and-white illustration of the vice president.
The magazine has caught some critique for putting out the story, for which Harris declined to be interviewed, amid Republican reproval that she hasn’t sat for a media interview since Biden quit the campaign, making way for her.
Harris-Walz 2024 spokesperson Joseph Costello released the following statement after the interview:
“Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com. Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.”
Trump addresses immigration
Trump: “You have millions of people coming in a month. And they have another 5 months.”
U.S. Customs and Border Protection reported 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico between January 2021 and June 2024. That’s arrests, not people.
Under pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many people made multiple crossing attempts until they succeeded because there were no legal consequences for getting turned back to Mexico.
So the number of people is lower than the number of arrests.
In addition, CBP said it stopped migrants 1.1 million times at official land crossings with Mexico between January 2021 and June 2024, largely under an online appointment system to claim asylum called CBP One.
U.S. authorities also admitted nearly 500,000 migrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela under presidential authority if they had financial sponsors and arrived at an airport.
All told, that’s nearly 8.7 million encounters. Again, the number of people is lower due to multiple encounters for some.
Trump replays the hits
Trump’s friendly interview with Musk revealed little new information about the former president’s thinking or his plans should he win a second term.
Trump spent much of the conversation discussing his favorite topics, including the border and illegal immigration.
Trump praises president of Argentina
Trump praised Argentina President Javier Milei and his extreme austerity measures that have laid off more than 70,000 public sector workers and cut pensions by 30% to reverse spending that caused the country to default on its debts.
“He’s great,” Trump told Musk. “I hear he’s doing really a terrific job. He’s going to make Argentina great again.”
Annual inflation in the South American country still tops 270%, among the highest rates in the world, outpacing salaries. And unemployment has become a bigger concern for the leader as the government freezes infrastructure projects.
Trump back on social media site ahead of interview
The live interview is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET and will be hosted on Trump’s official X account @realDonaldTrump. It will use X Spaces, a feature that allows users of the platform to host live audio conversations.
The “live conversation” will be “unscripted with no limits on subject matter,” Musk wrote Sunday, adding it “should be highly entertaining.” He encouraged users to post specific questions and comments under the stream’s chat.
The Trump campaign said it will be “the interview of the century.”
Musk posted some “system scaling tests” ahead of Monday night’s conversation, which is expected to have a high volume of viewers.
Trump made his return to the platform for the first time in nearly a year, sharing a campaign advertisement hours ahead of the interview. It marked just the second time Trump has posted on X since his account was suspended in the wake of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol and reinstated the following year.
Musk’s reinstatement of Trump’s account in 2022 was part of the tech billionaire’s new approach to the platform’s content moderation policies after purchasing the company.
Just more than an hour later, Trump posted again on the platform, lamenting about the state of the nation’s economy.
“Are you better off now than you were when I was president?” he wrote. Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We’re a nation in decline. Make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again. Make America SAFE again. Make America GREAT Again!”
Musk endorses Trump
Those who have followed Musk in recent years will recall a time when he said he didn’t really have an interest in backing either party.
All of that changed the day an attempt on Trump’s life was made at a rally. At that point, Musk outwardly said that he was going to endorse the Republican nominee.
You compare that to 2022, which was a very different tune in which Musk called on Trump to hang up his hat and sail off into the sunset, stepping aside for new leadership in the Republican Party.
The Trump-Musk relationship has improved dramatically in just a couple of years, to the point that Musk is now backing the former rhetorically and financially.
While the duo are ideologically aligned on the border and anti-transgender legislation, there have been some differences in thought.
Trump has been talking extensively about the issue of electric cars, saying the country isn’t ready to completely switch to them.
Of course, Musk heads up Tesla and is a strong proponent of electric vehicles. The two have politely disagreed in recent months, and you’ve even seen the former president address this on the campaign trail in Michigan.
“He’s never mentioned to me, ‘Why are you hitting the electric cars?’ Because he understands I’m not hitting it. I think it’s incredible. I’ve had them, I’ve driven them,” Trump said last month.
“They’re incredible, but they’re not for everybody. Some people have to drive long distances, and they tend to be more expensive, and, you know, they’ll probably be made in China.”
NewsNation partner The Hill and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
