Elon Musk Interview With Donald Trump

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Part of a series on Twitter / X Spaces. [View Related Entries]

Overview

Elon Musk Interview With Donald Trump refers to an interview hosted by X (formerly Twitter) owner and billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk with his guest former President Donald Trump in August 2024, which took place on the Spaces feature of X. Shortly before the interview, Trump returned to the social media platform after a year-long hiatus. During their discussion, Musk announced his endorsement of Trump regarding the upcoming United States Presidential Election and asked a series of questions on subjects such as immigration and inflation, among other topics. The interview quickly sparked numerous jokes, memes and debates across multiple social media platforms after it took place, including a significant amount of discourse surrounding technical difficulties that disrupted it. Musk claimed the issues with the Spaces stream were the result of a Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack.

Background

On August 11th, 2024, X^[1] owner and businessman Elon Musk announced a live conversation and interview with former United States President and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump (seen below), scheduled for August 12th, 2024, at 8 p.m. Eastern Time. The post amassed more than 235,000 likes and 44,000 reposts in a day and quickly generated both press coverage and discourse online.

Developments

Donald Trump's First Tweet After Leaving X

A few hours after Elon Musk announced the interview with Donald Trump,^[2] the presidential candidate returned to the platform and posted a promotional video asking for votes and donations for his campaign. Prior to this, his most recent post to X was on August 24th, 2024, which was about his mugshot photo. The tweet (seen below) amassed over 24 million views and 460,000 likes in a few hours since uploaded on August 12th, 2024.

Thierry Breton Open Letter

On August 12th, 2024, The European Union's digital enforcer Thierry Breton wrote an open letter for Elon Musk ahead of the planned interview with Donald Trump, reminding him of the EU’s rules on promoting hate speech, writing, "With great audience comes greater responsibility #DSA," which amassed more than 11,000 likes and 11,000 reposts in a few hours. (seen below) .

Elon Musk^[3] replied to Breton's open letter that day, posting a meme from the movie Tropic Thunder with the text, "Take a big step back and literally, fuck your own face!" and the caption, "I really wanted to respond with this Tropic Thunder meme, but I would NEVER do something so rude & irresponsible!" The post amassed more than 264,000 likes and 47,000 reposts in a few hours.

Livestream of Interview

The Elon Musk interview with Donald Trump faced a lengthy delay caused by technical problems, as X users posted memes and jokes about it. For instance, on August 12th, 2024, X^[6] user @camhashoes posted a Guy Looking At Server meme, captioning it as, "Elon Musk trying to figure out how to get his app to work correctly for the Donald Trump interview😭😭." The tweet (seen below) amassed more than 830 likes and 100 reposts in a day.

Musk notably announced his endorsement of Trump during the interview, saying, "I think this is to people out there who are in the moderate camp to say, I think you should support Donald Trump for president." On August 13th, 2024, X^[7] user @AdrianDittmann (a rumored sockpuppet account of Musk) shared a clip showing Elon Musk's quote (seen below), amassing roughly 5 million views and 4,200 likes in a few hours.

DDoS Attack Allegations

Following the technical issues, Elon Musk claimed the technical problems at the start of the interview occurred due to a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDOS) attack on X.^[8] His tweet (seen below) amassed more than 306,000 likes and 65,000 reposts in a day.

According to sources interviewed by The Verge,^[9] the publication reported that there wasn’t a denial-of-service attack, alleging "another X staffer said there was a '99 percent' chance Musk was lying about an attack."

Online Reactions

The Elon Musk and Donald Trump interview quickly grew as a viral topic on the internet, sparking debates and memes in mid-August 2024. For example, on August 12th, 2024, a few hours before the interview, X^[4] user @DisavowTrump20 asked people to boycott the interview using the hashtag "#TwitterBlackout" (seen below, left), which amassed more than 4,100 likes and 1,900 reposts in a few hours.

On the same day, X^[5] user @ajalexander944 posted an AI-generated picture of Elon Musk and Donald Trump kissing (seen below, right) paired with the caption, "These IDIOTS are the WORST things ever happened to this country. Fuck these CLOWNS. 🤡🤡," amassing more than 290 likes and 100 reposts in a few hours.

Donald Trump On The Phone With Elon Musk

Donald Trump On The Phone With Elon Musk refers to a photo taken of Donald Trump during his X Spaces conversation with Elon Musk on August 12th, 2024. The photo, which showed Donald Trump smiling while looking intently at his smartphone, turned into an exploitable format with users recaptioning it to represent different situations. It also become the subject of fan art, with some drawing embellishments and extensions of Trump's body.