Elon Musk, Donald Trump occasion on X crashes website, Tesla CEO blames cyberattack

Elon Musk‘s much-hyped interview of former President Donald Trump on the social media platform X was shortly derailed by technical glitches within the first minutes of the scheduled begin time on Monday night.

Social media customers attempting to go online to the occasion, which was scheduled to start at 8 p.m. ET, reported that they may not be a part of X’s livestream platform.

Shortly after 8:20 p.m., Musk, the billionaire Tesla and SpaceX CEO, blamed a cyberattack for the freezing screens. He stated that the corporate had examined the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier on Monday to preempt any technical errors and guarantee X’s livestream capabilities may deal with the occasion.

Because the night went on and the platform struggled to resolve the technical concern, Musk stated that the interview would proceed at 8:30 E.T. with whichever customers may efficiently be a part of the stream. He added that the “unedited audio” can be posted instantly afterwards.

After almost an hour of troubleshooting, the dialog finally kicked off round 8:45 pm E.T. No less than a million individuals have been tuned into the interview, in line with the X Areas tally.

Musk opened the interview by apologizing for the delay and blaming an assault in opposition to the corporate’s servers. There have been no clear indicators of an assault, nonetheless, and different components of X continued working all through.

“This large assault illustrates there’s plenty of opposition to individuals simply listening to what President Trump has to say, however I am honored to have this dialog,” Musk stated.

In response to CNBC’s request for remark in regards to the technical delay, Trump marketing campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung pointed to Musk’s X put up blaming a possible cyberattack.

The glitch was paying homage to X’s technical catastrophe in 2023 that botched Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential marketing campaign launch announcement.

The interview was billed as a buzzy, news-making occasion to assist the Trump marketing campaign revive its supporters after a rattling three weeks since President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.

“That is unscripted with no limits on material, so ought to be extremely entertaining!” Musk wrote in a Sunday put up on X, teasing the occasion.

It is a growing story. Examine again for updates.