Donald Trump & Elon Musk's Big Night On X Is The Con Everyone Suspected

Once considered the front-runner in the 2024 presidential race, Donald Trump has been scrambling to keep his campaign afloat ever since Vice President Kamala Harris replaced President Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket. No longer able to aim at his opponent's age, the former president is looking for ways to gain the advantage again. So out of touch is Trump that he's even looking to his son Barron Trump for support; on the teen's advice, Trump sat for an interview with Adin Ross, a young social media influencer whose past guests have included white supremacist Nick Fuentes. Trump did another sit-down on August 12, this time on the Spaces platform of X (formerly known as Twitter) with Elon Musk. The irony was evident: The former POTUS was once banned from Twitter for his controversial posts, but once Musk took over in 2023, he lifted the ban. But the greater irony was yet to come.

After promising "the interview of the century" (per WGN), Trump and Musk found themselves red-faced when their listeners couldn't get into the room. A blank screen and "details not available" were all that appeared to followers. "Has it started yet, or am I just stuck on elevator music?" asked one. Another skeptically suggested, "I'm sure they're going to say it's because too many people tried to join." Nearly 20 minutes into the scheduled interview, Musk himself posted to explain a "DDOS" — a cyberattack overwhelming the system — was probably to blame.

The pre-show glitches of the Musk-Trump interview on X certainly didn't get it off to a rousing start. Jokes comparing the technical problems to Trump's presidential campaign came thick and fast in just a few minutes' time. Snarked critic Jeff Tiedrich, "So the guy who makes cars that randomly crash and burst into flames is interviewing Donald Trump, and the interview crashed and burst into flames?" Podcaster Wesley Clark recalled a similar problem occurred in 2023 when Musk interviewed then-candidate Ron DeSantis, and added, "Trump and Musk gave each other the mutual crypto kiss of death tonight. Feel like there should be an NFT of the interview for sale somewhere." Even Trump's future daughter-in-law, Kimberly Guilfoyle, poked a little fun by tweeting a meme of him getting a "Sorry to keep you waiting" message from his deputy communications chief Margo Martin.

Whatever the cause, the problem on X Spaces eventually resolved itself, and the program began some 40 minutes after its scheduled start time. Musk has called it a "conversation" rather than an interview, explaining, "Nobody is quite themselves in an interview, so it's hard to understand what they're really like." At the time of this post, the interview between Donald Trump and Elon Musk was still ongoing. Will he truly show a new side of himself, or will Trump simply repeat his false claims about Kamala Harris's crowd size? If so, the event might prove to be embarrassing in more ways than one.