A highly anticipated interview between former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk on X (formerly Twitter) faced significant technical difficulties at its scheduled start on Monday evening. The conversation, set to take place on X’s live audio feature Spaces, was initially unable to begin as planned at 8 PM ET.

Musk, the owner of X, attributed the issues to a “massive DDOS attack” on the platform. He stated, “There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down.” However, it’s worth noting that the rest of the X platform seemed to be functioning normally during this time.

Users attempting to access the Space encountered various problems, including frozen pages, browser crashes, and inability to join the broadcast. The interview, hosted on Trump’s previously dormant @RealDonaldTrump account, was eventually rescheduled to start 30 minutes later.

When the Space finally became accessible at 8:30 PM ET, listeners were met with hold music and periods of silence. The conversation officially began around 8:40 PM ET, with X reporting over 1 million concurrent listeners at its peak.

Musk addressed the delay at the start of the interview, saying, “The attack saturated all of our data lines. We think we’ve overcome most of that.” He added, “As this massive attack illustrates, there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say.”

Trump, for his part, expressed satisfaction with the turnout despite the technical issues, telling Musk, “You broke every record in the book with so many millions of people. We view that as an honor.”

This incident bears similarities to a previous technical mishap on X during Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’s presidential campaign announcement in May 2023, which also experienced significant delays and audio problems.

While Musk maintains that the difficulties were due to an external attack, the exact cause of the technical issues remains a topic of discussion. Some publications allege that the technical issues weren’t due to a DDoS attack, citing anonymous sources within X. Anyway, now that the conversation between Musk and Trump has ended, you can still listen to the complete recording by heading here.

Featured image credits: @stevenmarkryan / X

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Dwayne Cubbins
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For nearly a decade, I've been deciphering the complexities of the tech world, with a particular passion for helping users navigate the ever-changing tech landscape. From crafting in-depth guides that unlock your phone's hidden potential to uncovering and explaining the latest bugs and glitches, I make sure you get the most out of your devices. And yes, you might occasionally find me ranting about some truly frustrating tech mishaps.

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