Musk says cyber attack on X derails Trump interview

This combination of pictures created on August 12, 2024 shows, L-R, South African businessman Elon Musk arriving at the Tenth Breakthrough Prize Ceremony at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures in Los Angeles, California, on April 13, 2024 and former US President and 2024 Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump speaking at the National Association of Black Journalists annual convention in Chicago, Illinois, on July 31, 2024. (Photograph: ETIENNE LAURENT and KAMIL KRZACZYNSKI / AFP)

Elon Musk said that his much-trailed interview with Donald Trump was derailed by a cyber attack on his social media platform on Monday.

“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down,” the world’s richest man wrote on the platform formerly known as Twitter.

Musk, who has said he previously voted Democrat, has thrown his weight — and his wealth — behind Trump since a gunman tried to assassinate the Republican at a rally last month.

Trump was banned from Twitter after a mob of his supporters stormed the US Capitol in January 2021, but Musk reinstated him when he took the platform over and renamed it.

The two men’s conversation on Monday was intended to help reinvigorate Trump’s stuttering campaign, which has been flagged since President Biden dropped out of the race.

Its apparent failure will be an embarrassment to both men.

“We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today,” Musk wrote, pledging to host the live conversation with a limited number of listeners and post “the unedited audio” later.

AFP