Following tech delays, Musk and Trump had a cordial conversation about X.
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During a discussion, Musk promises to assist the administration of Donald Trump.
Technical difficulties plagued Elon Musk and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump during their highly anticipated conversation on the billionaire's platform X.
The amicable Q&A session with Mr. Musk covering topics like inflation and immigration started over 40 minutes after schedule due to technical difficulties experienced by numerous users.
Although the event was advertised as an interview, Trump made a number of unsupported statements that were accepted without argument.
In November's election, Mr. Musk reiterated his support for Trump, who is running against Vice President Kamala Harris, a resurgent new Democratic contender. He attributed the malfunctions to a cyberattack, although a specialist told the BBC that was improbable.
The former president and Republican presidential contender, Donald Trump, is attempting to restart his reelection campaign at the time of the X discussion. The contest for the White House has tightened since Ms. Harris entered the campaign following President Joe Biden's resignation. In the meantime, Mr. Musk's influence in politics is growing.
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Lately, he has joined a new political committee that backs Trump's candidacy. In one conversation, Mr. Musk replied, "I think Kamala is the opposite and you are the way to development and America is at a fork in the road."
The two men discussed a variety of topics, including the movement of people, a major campaign platform, and Trump's desire for the US to acquire a "Iron Dome" missile defense system similar to the one in Israel.
They also discussed the assassination attempt on Trump that occurred at a gathering in Pennsylvania. In his contemplations, Trump also mentioned that one of his first actions as president, should he win in November, would be to close the federal Department of Education and transfer that authority to the states.
Over time, Mr. Musk and Trump's relationship has changed, and they have previously exchanged jabs online.
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However, the two had a friendly conversation on Monday during which there was a lot of appreciation for one another. Trump, who has expressed doubt about electric cars and has threatened to remove government subsidies in the past, lauded Tesla, an automobile manufacturer that Elon Musk also owns.
In light of Mr. Musk's endorsement, he previously declared that he had "no choice" but to promote electric vehicles (EVs) and on Monday he praised the Tesla product as "excellent".
A Trump campaign spokesperson said that Trump's voice was normal, despite the fact that many onlookers heard something strange in it—like a lisp.
Nevertheless, the Musk-Trump dialogue did not start off well. Mr. Musk sent a statement blaming "a massive DDoS attack on X" for the issues as many users were having trouble accessing the broadcast.
Operations known as distributed denial of services, or DDoS, aim to overwhelm a website in order to render it unusable or unreachable.
Anthony Lim, the Director of the Singapore-based Center for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies, told the BBC that a DDoS attack involves sending an enormous amount of signals to an online target in an attempt to disrupt it. "It is improbable that it would impact just one particular service or feature on a webpage."
Mr. Lim continued by saying that it's plausible that a sizable number of listeners briefly brought down the service. But according to Andrew Hay of the IT company Damovo, a cyberattack might have been the root of the issues. The unreliable start brought back memories of Florida Governor Ron DeSantis' May 2023 X presidential announcement, which included a webcast error.
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Monday was somewhat of Trump's comeback to X/Twitter; he was kicked off the platform soon after the Capitol brawl on January 6, 2021.
Trump had only shared his mug photo and a link to his campaign website once, a year ago, following Mr. Musk's reactivation of his X account in 2022.
This was in addition to a barrage of campaign commercials on his bank account on Monday. It's unclear if Trump, who updates his Truth Social website often, would carry on posting more often on X.
