Elon Musk has announced a delay in his live interview with Donald Trump due to a significant DDOS attack on X

Aug. 13, 2024, 1:01 a.m.

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Elon Musk announced on Monday (August 12) that his highly anticipated interview with Donald Trump was disrupted by a cyber attack on his social media platform. The site displayed a “not available” page shortly after the scheduled start time of 8 pm Eastern Time for many users.

“Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later,” Musk posted.

Musk, who had previously expressed support for the Democratic party, has recently backed Trump after an attempt on the latter’s life at a rally.

Advertisement Following Trump’s ban from Twitter (now X) in January 2021, Musk reinstated him on the platform, which he now runs and has renamed.

The conversation between Musk and Trump was intended to rejuvenate Trump’s struggling campaign.

Musk expressed apologies and promised to host a live discussion with a limited audience. He also committed to releasing the unedited audio later, after successfully testing the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier in the day.

What was billed as a “no limits” conversation, finally began at 8:42 pm ET, more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time. With many people unable to listen in live, the event proved to be an embarrassing setback for both men.

According to a counter on X, approximately 1.2 million individuals were engaged in the conversation at 9:30 pm ET.

By that point, the discussion had already delved into the assassination attempt on Trump, immigration, and the conflicts in Ukraine and Israel. Trump's speech, at times, conveyed a noticeable lisp, as observed by many listeners on X. Some attributed the effect to cartoonish delivery, while others suggested it might be a result of audio compression challenges.

Trump regularly posts on his Truth Social platform, launched in February 2022, but his content reaches a significantly smaller audience compared to X.

Advertisement The interview on Musk’s social media platform allows Trump to reach a different audience than the conservative faithful who attend his rallies and watch his interviews on Fox News.

Some X users also reported seeing advertisements promoting Trump.

This report draws on information from multiple sources.