Donald Trump told Elon Musk that “illegal immigration saved my life” in a highly anticipated X-Talk that was delayed due to technical problems.
Shortly after the scheduled start time of 8pm Eastern Time (1am UK time), the site indicated that the page was “unavailable” to some users, even though more than 115,000 people had apparently successfully logged in.
Musk then tweeted: “There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. We are working to stop it.”
Picture: Donald Trump speaks with Elon Musk in the White House in 2017. Image: AP
A distributed denial-of-service attack (DDOS) aims to take a website, computer, or online service offline.
This is done by flooding the target with many requests, exhausting its capacity and making it unable to respond to legitimate requests.
The event started about 40 minutes late, and Musk opened the chat by talking about the assassination attempt on Mr. Trump.
Analysis: Musk is now a Trump fan – but will the support be decisive?
Picture: The conversation was delayed due to technical problems. Image: X
The tech billionaire could be heard laughing throughout the entire event – especially when Trump claimed: “Illegal immigration saved my life.”
The Republican candidate said he turned his head to look at an illegal immigration map during the July 13 rally – which meant gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks missed him.
At a glance: What Trump told Musk
• Mr Trump praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – all authoritarian rulers – and said they were “at the peak of their careers”;
• He spoke of his good relationship with Kim Jong Un, claiming the North Korean leader told him he did not like the “stupid man” Joe Biden;
• If “something happens” in the election, Mr Trump told Mr Musk, they would next meet in Venezuela because “that is a far safer place to meet than our country.”
• He also said that if he lost the election, “there will be no country left”;
• Mr Trump said one of his first acts as president would be to shut down the Department of Education and return responsibility to the individual states – adding: “I bet out of 50 (states), 35 would do a great job”;
• “I didn’t know I had that much blood in me,” Trump said of the attempt on his life, adding that he is now “even more of a person who believes in God.”
• Mr Trump repeatedly insulted his rival Kamala Harris, calling her “incompetent” and “a radical left-wing lunatic” before praising her looks – “she looks like the most beautiful actress who ever lived”;
• Mr Trump repeated debunked claims, including the theory that “the Congo” emptied its prisons of murderers and sent them to the United States.
He continued to criticize the immigration record of his Democratic rival Kamala Harris, claiming she was responsible for a huge increase in the number of illegal border crossings after she was given “oversight” of the Mexican-American border.
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Elon Musk on delaying Trump interview
Ms. Harris coordinated work with other countries to combat the poverty and security problems that drove people to the United States, but was not directly responsible for border policy.
Mr Trump complained extensively about undocumented immigrants entering the United States.
“Elon, what happened is unbelievable,” he said during his chat to 1.2 million X listeners.
“They come from Congo. Recently 22 people entered from Congo and they are murderers.”
In the two-hour show, the two also discussed government efficiency, nuclear power and tax cuts.
Musk is now a full-fledged Trump fan. Will his support be decisive?
When the interview finally began, a love-in began between two of the most powerful people in the world.
Musk began by saying that this forum would not be “confrontational.” It would be a “conversation” aimed at “open-minded, independent voters,” he said. In effect, it was a sermon from Donald Trump, punctuated by occasional murmurs of approval from Musk.
He spoke for more than 20 minutes about the attack, with few interruptions. Trump recounted how he narrowly escaped death because he turned his head at the last moment and looked at a map behind him that showed the number of border crossings.
“Illegal immigration saved my life,” he explained, prompting a girlish laugh from the richest man in the world. This was not an incisive political interview. It wasn’t even particularly interesting.
With this interview, Trump wanted to slow down the great success of the Kamala Harris campaign. Just four weeks ago, he was ahead in all seven swing states, but in three of these swing states, Harris has dramatically closed this lead.
Mr Trump was mocked for saying Ms Harris “accidentally turned black” and is still struggling to find a successful line of attack against the vice president. There was a bizarre moment in conversation with Musk when he said he had seen Ms Harris on the cover of Time magazine.
“She looks like the most beautiful actress who ever lived,” he said. “It was a drawing, and in fact she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania. She didn’t look like Kamala. But of course she is a beautiful woman.”
There hasn’t been much new insight into Trump’s views. However, the evolution of Musk’s political stance continues to be fascinating.
The full analysis can be found here.
The technical problems will bring back bad memories for Elon Musk of May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis experienced a chaotic start to his run for the Republican presidential nomination due to glitches on the platform.
During the hour-long broadcast, there were large audio blackouts and thousands of users were unable to participate or were excluded.
Read more: Biden gives reasons for his withdrawal from the presidential campaign Musk vs. Starmer: What they accuse each other of
At the time, Mr Trump mocked Mr DeSantis on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
“My red button is bigger, better, stronger and works (TRUTH!),” Trump posted.
