Trump, Musk X 'live conversation' stunted by technical woes

By Michael Hernandez

WASHINGTON (AA) - A "live conversation" between former US president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump and X owner Elon Musk was stunted for many users Monday as they were unable to access it.

Musk blamed the technical difficulties, which were ongoing for over half-an-hour, on what he said "appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X," saying staff are "working on shutting it down."

He opened the door to many users not being able to access the feed when and if it begins, saying "worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later."

Boppy electronic music was being played before that appeared to come to pass as Musk later posted: "We will proceed with the smaller number of concurrent listeners at 8:30 ET and then post the unedited audio immediately thereafter."

It is unclear if the interview has begun and if there is actually an ongoing cyberattack against the social media platform, which Musk bought in 2022. Other components of X appear to be functioning without interruption.

Musk and Trump hyped the interview earlier in the day on their X accounts, with the former president ending a nearly one-year hiatus from the website to post a slew of campaign-related messages as he loses ground in national polling against Vice President and Democratic nominee Kamala Harris.