Despite starting 40 minutes late, the rambling, slightly unhinged live-streamed conversation between Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump on X lasted 2 hours on the night of August 12. It accumulated nearly 1 billion views.
The stream covered everything from immigration to what Trump, who was recently convicted on felony charges, called Joe Biden’s “stupid face.”
Trump also provided a full recount of his recent assassination attempt and name-dropped controversial world leaders like Kim Jong Un and Vladimir Putin.
The conversation soon turned to Biden’s candidate replacement, Kamala Harris. In one especially bizarre moment, Trump called her “beautiful” and compared her to his wife Melania.
Why did the Musk/Trump X stream start late?
Musk claimed that the stream’s delayed start was due to a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack. This is when a server is overrun with traffic in an attempt to shut it down.
However, in conversation with The Washington Post, some engineers pointed out that while users struggled to access the stream, the rest of the app was functioning without a hitch.
This, they added, is inconsistent with the qualities of a DDoS attack. Similarly, an X adviser told the outlet that they saw no evidence of a DDoS attack. The adviser also noted that Musk would be aware of any additional information related to the attack.
Similarly, an expert in volumetric DDoS attacks told NBC that, after scanning X’s internet traffic, there was no indication of an attack aimed at X.
The platform is the latest pit stop in Trump’s grand tour of “edgy” internet personalities. He recently caused a stir on a 90-minute livestream with Adin Ross on Kick. Before this, he also appeared on Logan Paul’s podcast. His triumphant return to the controversial social media platform, directly into Musk’s warm embrace, is just his latest creator-centric stunt.
