Monday’s highly anticipated conversation between former President Trump and Tesla founder Elon Musk on the social platform X was delayed by tech issues, which Musk blamed on an apparent cyberattack.
Musk, who owns X and has endorsed Trump in the 2024 presidential race, posted that there appeared to be a “massive DDOS,” or denial-of-service attack, targeting the platform.
“Working on shutting it down,” Musk posted. “Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.”
Trump posted a link to the Spaces where the conversation would take place just before 8 p.m. EDT, but the event had not started as of 8:30 p.m. More than 700,000 users had joined as of 8:30 p.m.
The conversation finally began at 8:42 p.m., with Musk acknowledging the delay.
“As this massive attack illustrates, there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say,” Musk said.
Users posted about having difficulties joining the Space, sharing screenshots of messages saying “details not available” or “this space is not available.” Others were able to join but only heard filler music while waiting for Trump and Musk to begin talking.
The technical problems were reminiscent of when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) attempted to use Spaces to launch his 2024 presidential bid. That was also plagued by technical issues, as the call went in and out for more than 20 minutes before Musk ended the original Spaces and attempted to begin a new one.
Harris campaign officials were quick to draw comparisons between Trump’s technical difficulties and those of DeSantis in light of the Florida governor’s unsuccessful campaign.
“Checking in on Trump’s interview with Elon. Getting some real Ron DeSantis flashbacks,” Harris spokesperson Ammar Moussa posted on X.