Trump’s interview with Musk on X platform hamstrung by tech issues

Donald Trump’s big return to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter did not begin as planned.

Trump and Elon Musk, X’s owner, were slated to have what the tech titan termed a “live conversation” at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. “Should be highly entertaining!” Musk posted ahead of the event.

But more than 25 minutes after the scheduled start time, many users received error messages and were unable to log in ahead of the advertised live interview. A message read, “Details not available.”

Trump’s team posted that the “interview on X is being overwhelmed with listeners logging in.”

The conversation was intended to serve as a way for the former president to reach potentially millions of voters directly. It was also an opportunity for X, a platform that relies heavily on politics, to redeem itself after some struggles.

Notably, in May 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis used the platform as a way to officially announce his presidential bid, a disastrous rollout marred by technical glitches, overloaded by the more than 400,000 people who tried to dial in.

Ahead of his conversation with Trump, Musk posted on the platform that X was conducting “some system scaling tests” to handle what’s anticipated to be a high volume of participants.

Trump supporters were not happy with the results.

“Not available????? I planned my whole day around this,” wrote conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

“Please let Elon know we can’t join,” billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman posted.

The coming chat prompted a cautionary response from Europe. Thierry Breton, a French business executive and commissioner for internal market of the European Union, warned Musk of possible “amplification of harmful content” by broadcasting his interview with Trump. In a letter posted on X, Breton urged Musk to “ensure X’s compliance” with EU law, including the Digital Services Act, adopted in 2022 to address a number of issues including disinformation.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung urged the EU to “mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the U.S. Presidential election.” He said the EU was “an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign.”

Musk, who has described himself as a Democrat until a few years ago, endorsed Trump’s candidacy two days after the former president was wounded during an attempted assassination at a Pennsylvania rally last month.

Long before he endorsed Trump, Musk turned increasingly toward the right in his posts and actions on the platform, also using X to try to sway political discourse around the world. He’s gotten in a dustup with a Brazilian judge over censorship, railed against what he calls the “woke mind virus” and amplified false claims that Democrats are secretly flying in migrants to vote in U.S. elections.

Musk has also reinstated previously banned accounts such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump, who was kicked off the platform — then known as Twitter — two days after the Jan. 6 violence, with the company citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” By November 2022, Musk had bought the company, and Trump’s account was reinstated, although the former president refrained from tweeting until Monday, insisting that he was happier on his own Truth Social site, which he launched during the ban.

Hours ahead of his interview with Musk, Trump posted a two-and-a-half minute video to his X account, featuring video from his time in office, as well as audio of him saying one of his standard campaign lines referencing the legal cases that have mounted against him: “They’re not coming after me, they’re coming after you, and I just happen to be standing in their way, and I will never be moving.”

But Trump’s audience on X is legions larger than on Truth Social, which became a publicly traded company earlier this year. Trump has just over 7.5 million followers on Truth Social, while his mostly dormant X account is followed by 88 million. Musk’s account, which will host the interview, has more than 193 million followers.

Trump’s campaign didn’t immediately respond to a message as to whether he would cross-post his interview with Musk via his own accounts, including on X.

The former president has most recently posted on X only once, with a photo of his mug shot after he surrendered at an Atlanta jail a year ago on charges he conspired to overturn his election loss in the state.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina, and can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP.

Meg Kinnard, The Associated Press