Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk finally got underway on Musk’s social media platform X on Monday evening, following a lengthy delay caused by technical problems that kept many users from accessing the livestream.
Musk began the event at 8:42 p.m. (0042 GMT Tuesday), more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time. He blamed the difficulties on a distributed denial of service attack, a type of cyber attack in which a server or network is flooded with traffic in an attempt to shut it down, though his claim was not confirmed.
More than a million people were listening as the conversation started, according to a counter on X. “Congratulations on breaking every record in the book,” Trump said, an apparent reference to the number of people who tried to tune into their conversation.
Musk opened the event by asking Trump to describe his attempted assassination on July 13, in which his ear was struck by a bullet.
Musk, the world’s richest person, endorsed Trump shortly after the shooting. He backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since.
(Cover image via CFP)
