Ladies and gentlemen, buckle up because this story has it all—politics, tech drama, and some serious cyber chaos.
On Monday evening, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and tech billionaire Elon Musk teamed up for an interview on X Spaces, the live audio chat feature of X (formerly known as Twitter). The event was highly anticipated, drawing in hundreds of thousands of eager listeners. But just as the interview was getting started, things went south and fast.
Around 8 p.m. EST, the live stream crashed, and Musk quickly took to X to explain the cause—a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack. For those not in the know, a DDOS attack is when a flood of internet traffic overwhelms a network, causing it to crash. Imagine trying to get through a door with a thousand people all at once—nobody’s going anywhere! Musk assured everyone they were working on the issue and, worst-case scenario, they’d continue with a smaller audience and post the full interview later.
There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down.
Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Despite the tech troubles, Musk managed to get the show back on the road, and by 8:30 p.m., the interview was live again, this time with a smaller group of listeners. Still, the event went on to become the largest X Space event ever, with over a million users tuning in at its peak.
.@realDonaldTrump‘s space with @elonmusk has over 1.2 million listeners. This is the biggest space yet in X’s history.#PCTechUpdates pic.twitter.com/UHO696wE25
— PC Tech Magazine (@pctechmagazine) August 13, 2024
But it wasn’t just the technical difficulties that had people talking. The content of the interview was equally explosive. Trump discussed a range of topics, from his thoughts on immigration to his controversial stance on eliminating the Department of Education, advocating for a return of education control to the states.
His comments were met with sharp criticism from the Harris campaign, which wasted no time in blasting Trump for what they called an agenda-serving “self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class.”
“Donald Trump’s extremism and dangerous Project 2025 agenda is a feature not a glitch of his campaign, which was on full display for those unlucky enough to listen in tonight during whatever that was on X.com,” Harris campaign spokesperson Joseph Costello said in a statement. “Trump’s entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself — self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024.”
Harris’ campaign wasn’t the only source of controversy. Trump also took the opportunity to distance himself from Project 2025, a conservative initiative that has been criticized as authoritarian and out of touch. Trump dismissed parts of the plan as “ridiculous” and “abysmal,” but the debate over it is far from over.
“This country is going down, and these people are bad people that we’re running against. And they’re liars. They make statements. They do things that are so bad. They say they’re going to make a strong border. They say they’ve been great on the border, and they’ve been the worst in history. They say they’ll stop crime,” Trump said.
“She is considered more liberal, by far, than Bernie Sanders. She’s a radical-left lunatic. And if she’s going to be our president, very quickly, you’re not going to have a country anymore. And she’ll go back to all the things that she believes in. She believes in defunding the police. She believes in no fracking, zero,” Trump said of Harris.
In a twist, Musk extended an olive branch to Vice President Kamala Harris, saying he’d be happy to host her on X Spaces as well. Whether she takes him up on the offer remains to be seen, but one thing’s for sure—this election season is only getting more intense.
With Trump back on X after a nearly year-long hiatus, expect more fireworks as we inch closer to election day. Stay tuned, folks, because if Monday night is any indication, this ride is far from over.
