Tech billionaire Elon Musk\u2019s highly anticipated online event with former President Donald Trump was delayed Monday by technical difficulties as some users of Musk\u2019s X app said they couldn\u2019t access the discussion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The discussion, which began <\/strong>about 40 minutes after its scheduled 8 p.m. ET start time, was largely a Trump monologue, not unlike his public rallies, with Musk occasionally jumping in with friendly questions about subjects on which the two men generally agree. They bonded over their shared opposition to immigration, as both said that the U.S. would cease being a real country if immigration continued at current levels.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Speaking apparently off the cuff, Trump tossed out casual insults of his enemies, including saying President Joe Biden has a \u201cstupid face.\u201d He also repeated debunked claims, including the theory that \u201cthe Congo,\u201d which isn\u2019t a country, had emptied its prisons of murderers<\/a> and sent them to the U.S.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk, the CEO of Tesla, tried to nudge Trump to act on climate change and move away from fossil fuels, but he appeared to have little impact as Trump said energy innovation was \u201cnot my world.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI’m sort of waiting for you to come up with solar panels on the roofs of your cars,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The tech problems echoed similar difficulties in May 2023, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his Republican presidential bid on X and was repeatedly disrupted because the site\u2019s servers apparently couldn\u2019t handle the surge in traffic<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The audio-only discussion eventually began and lasted more than two hours. It attracted more than 1.3 million listeners at its peak, according to X\u2019s public tally. The event came as Trump has scaled back his in-person appearances after a would-be assassin<\/a> shot at him at a rally in Pennsylvania on July 13. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump and Musk spent the beginning of the event recounting the attempted assassination, including what the Secret Service could have done differently to prevent it and Trump\u2019s reaction immediately afterward holding up a fist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI just want to say that I think a lot of people admire your courage under fire there,\u201d Musk said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump later joked, \u201cIllegal immigration saved my life,\u201d nodding to the topic and a chart he was talking about when shots began to fly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Trump spokesperson posted what appeared to be a picture of Trump during the conversation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump\u2019s campaign billed the event ahead of time as \u201cthe interview of the century,\u201d while Musk had promised it would be \u201cunscripted with no limits on subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk said that the initial technical difficulties were caused by a \u201cmassive DDOS attack on X,\u201d referring to a \u201cdistributed denial-of-service\u201d attack, in which hostile users try to overwhelm a system to cause chaos, though Musk didn\u2019t provide evidence of an attack. NBC News was unable to verify Musk’s claim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n One expert in volumetric DDoS attacks, the most common type of DDoS that entails simply directing a massive amount of fake traffic at a computer network, said a scan of recent internet traffic showed no signs of an attack aimed at X, which seemed to otherwise work normally. The expert asked to not be named for fear of retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Alp Toker, the director of Netblocks, a company that tracks internet traffic, said on X<\/a>, \u201cAny sufficiently overloaded server is indistinguishable from a DDoS.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some X users said they believed the problem was X\u2019s technical capabilities, rather than an attack. The word \u201ccrashed\u201d appeared on X\u2019s trending list at one point, in reference to the app\u2019s software, as users posted in frustration about not being able to join the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As users struggled to join, scammers appeared to be taking advantage of the moment. A fake Tesla YouTube account posted a livestream of what appeared to be a doctored video of Musk asking users to scan a QR code to \u201cdouble\u201d their cryptocurrency. Many crypto scams use similar tactics in an effort to steal bitcoin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The event demonstrated how much Trump and Musk have reconciled after years of ups and downs in their relationship. It appeared to be their first joint public event since Trump was in the White House, although the two men met privately at least once this year<\/a> in Palm Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk endorsed Trump last month<\/a> for another term in the White House, and as one of the world\u2019s wealthiest people, he has brought his checkbook to the presidential race, contributing to a political action committee<\/a> with a goal of boosting turnout for the Nov. 5 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A Trump win in the fall could be a boost to Musk\u2019s business empire<\/a>. His companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, are entangled in multiple regulatory fights with the Biden administration, and Trump has vowed to push a deregulatory agenda. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Vice President Kamala Harris and her running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, have also received a groundswell of social media support, with supporters posting a flurry of memes<\/a> and videos. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The relationship between Musk and Trump hasn\u2019t always been so warm. In 2022, Musk said he\u2019d like to see Trump \u201chang up his hat & sail into the sunset<\/a>,\u201d and Trump hit back, writing on Truth Social that he had Musk over a barrel when Musk visited the White House: \u201cI could have said, \u2018drop to your knees and beg,\u2019 and he would have done it.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Musk later said he would support DeSantis<\/a> in the 2024 Republican presidential primaries, and he personally hosted the event on X<\/a> to launch DeSantis\u2019 campaign. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A key question hanging over the Trump-Musk alliance has been the future of federal subsidies for electric vehicles, including those made by Tesla. Trump has railed against<\/a> government measures to boost electrification, while Tesla continues to receive billions of dollars a year in regulatory credits<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Trump pointed out their difference Monday, telling Musk that he has an \u201cincredible\u201d product but \u201cthat doesn\u2019t mean everybody should have an electric car.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n