Trump, Musk interview marred by tech issues

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sat on Monday for a friendly two-hour interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Musk’s social media platform X, after technical problems delayed the start of the event for more than 40 minutes.
Musk, who has endorsed Trump, blamed the difficulties on a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack, in which a server or network is flooded with traffic in an attempt to shut it down, though his claim could not be verified.
Trump sought to turn the problems into a positive, congratulating Musk on the number of people trying to tune in.
A counter on X showed as many as 1.3mn people were listening at times during the lengthy conversation.
The technical issues recalled a similar event on X in May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suffered a chaotic start to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination due to glitches on the platform.
At the time, Trump mocked DeSantis on his own, social media platform, Truth Social.
“My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!)” Trump posted, “Yours does not.”
Ahead of Monday’s event, Musk had written: “Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation.”
X did not respond to requests for details or evidence of the alleged cyberattack.
The two men exchanged praise repeatedly, with the Tesla chief lauding Trump for his bravery during the attempt on his life last month, and Trump congratulating Musk for his willingness to fire workers demanding better conditions.
“You’re the greatest cutter,” Trump said. “I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: ‘You want to quit?’ They go on strike – I won’t mention the name of the company – but they go on strike. And you say: ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone’.”
Musk, the world’s richest person, announced his support for Trump shortly after his attempted assassination, despite the Republican’s opposition to state support for electric carmakers like Tesla.
Musk backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since.
“I think we’re at a fork in the road of destiny, of civilisation, and I think we need to take the right path, and I think you’re the right path,” he told Trump as the interview concluded.
The chat with Musk offered Trump an unfiltered chance to air his usual mix of grievances, personal attacks and overstated or false claims.
Musk let Trump lead the conversation and did not challenge Trump’s inaccurate statements, like the assertion that other countries were sending criminals from their prisons across the southern US border.
Studies show immigrants, including those in the US illegally, do not commit crimes at a higher rate than native-born Americans.
“We have people streaming over,” Musk told Trump, likening the border to the “zombie apocalypse” depicted in the film “World War Z.”
“It’s just not possible for the United States to absorb, you know, everyone from Earth,” said Musk, identifying himself as a “legal immigrant.”
The Republican standard-bearer also spoke about climate change, whose sea-level rises he said would simply create more real estate opportunities.
“The biggest threat is not global warming, where the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch over the next 400 years,” he told Musk.
“You’ll have more ocean front property, right? The biggest threat is not that,” Trump said. “The biggest threat is nuclear warming, because we have five countries now that have significant nuclear power, and we have to not allow anything to happen with stupid people like Biden.”
The talk was Trump’s latest effort to seize the spotlight from his Democratic rival, Vice-President Kamala Harris, whose 11th-hour entry into the race has galvanised her party and boosted Democratic fundraising.
The former president sounded at several points as if he had a lisp, something many listeners noted on X.
The Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment about Trump’s speech.
Trump insulted Harris several times, referring to her as “third rate”, “incompetent” and “a radical left lunatic”.
However, then he praised her looks.
“She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live,” Trump said about a picture of Harris on the cover of Time magazine. “It was a drawing, and actually, she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania,” he added, referring to his wife Melania Trump.
He also expressed anger that Harris had been swapped in for Biden on the Democratic ticket.
“She hasn’t done an interview since this whole scam started,” Trump said, claiming falsely that Biden dropping off the ticket was a “coup”.
A longstanding critic of electric vehicles, Trump has shifted gears since Musk’s endorsement.
On Monday, he described the electric cars made by Tesla as “incredible”.
He also praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un – all authoritarian strongmen – as at the “top of their game”.