Trump And Musk Interviews Interrupted With Technical Problems, Watched By More Than 1.3 Million Listeners

JAKARTA - Republican US presidential candidate Donald Trump conducted a two-hour interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Musk's social media platform, X. However, this interview was delayed by more than 40 minutes due to technical problems.

Musk, who has provided support to Trump, blamed the cyber Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack as the cause of the disturbance, although this claim has yet to be verified. However, Trump tried to turn the situation around by congratulating Musk for the number of people trying to take part in this interview. A counter on X shows that as many as 1.3 million people listened to the interview at some point.

This technical problem reminds of a similar incident in X in May 2023, when the Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, experienced a disruption during the launch of his campaign for a Republican presidential nomination. At that time, Trump mocked DeSantis on his social media platform, Truth Social.

During the interview, the two men praised each other. Musk, CEO of Tesla, praised Trump's courage during an attempted murder against him last month, while Trump praised Musk for his courage to fire workers demanding better working conditions.

This interview provides Trump with the opportunity to express his typical complaints, personal attacks, and overestimated or inaccurate claims. Musk let Trump lead the conversation without challenging untrue statements, such as allegations that other countries sent criminals from their prisons to the southern US border, or that the price ofTEN has risen four to five times.

This interview is Trump's latest attempt to capture the attention of his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, who entered the election arena suddenly in a presidential election from the Democratic Party has boosted the spirit of his party and campaign funding. Harris has dominated the news with a series of passionate public meetings since replacing Biden as a party candidate three weeks ago.

After the interview, Harris' campaign spokesman Joseph totaling Trump's campaign, said that "Trump's campaign is entirely to serve people like Elon Musk and himself rich people who only care about themselves and will sell middle class for their personal interests."

Trump also commented on Harris' performance by calling her "appearing like the most beautiful actress ever to live" in a picture on the cover of Time magazine, although then she likened Harris to his wife, Melania Trump.

This interview also marked Trump's return to platform X after his account was restored a month after Musk took over ownership. Previously, Trump's account was blocked after the January 6, 2021 attacks on the US Capitol, fearing he would incite violence. Although Trump has frequently posted on his Truth Social platform, posts there have a much smaller audience reach than on X.

Musk, who supports Trump's claims about voter fraud and Biden's immigration policy, has started a super PAC spending group to support Trump's campaign. This political action group is now being investigated in Michigan regarding possible state law violations in gathering voter information.