Trump, Musk talk assassination, deportation in interview marred by glitches

Donald Trump has recounted his assassination attempt and promised the largest deportation in US history during the much-anticipated conversation with Elon Musk on social media platform X, marred by technical glitches and issues.

"If I had not turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now — as much as I like you," Trump told X's owner Elon Musk on Monday.

He blamed the assassination attempt on a "lack of coordination."

Musk, a former Trump critic, said the Republican nominee's toughness, as demonstrated by his reaction to last month's shooting, was critical for national security.

"There's some real tough characters out there," Musk said. "And if they don't think the American president is tough, they will do what they want to do."

The session was intended to serve as a way for the former president to reach potentially millions of voters directly. It was also an opportunity for X, a platform that relies heavily on politics, to redeem itself after some struggles. It did not begin as planned.

With more than 878,000 users connected to the conversation more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time, the interview had not yet begun. Many users received a message reading, “Details not available."

Trump's team posted that the "interview on X is being overwhelmed with listeners logging in." And once the meeting began, Musk apologised for the late start and blamed a "massive attack" that overwhelmed the company's system.

Ahead of his conversation, Musk posted on the platform that X was conducting "some system scaling tests" to handle what's anticipated to be a high volume of participants.

Shifting loyalties

Monday's meeting also highlighted the evolving personal relationship between Trump and Musk, two of the world's most influential men, who have shifted from being bitter rivals to unlikely allies over the span of one election season.

Musk, who has described himself as a Democrat until a few years ago, suggested in 2022 that Trump was too old to be president again. Still, Musk formally endorsed Trump two days after his assassination attempt last month.

The tech CEO had already been working privately to support a pro-Trump super PAC. The group, known as America PAC, is now under investigation by election officials for alleged misleading attempts to collect data from voters.

Long before he endorsed Trump, Musk turned increasingly toward the right in his posts and actions on the platform, also using X to try to sway political discourse around the world.

Musk has also reinstated previously banned accounts such as the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and Trump, who was kicked off the platform — then known as Twitter — two days after the January 6 violence, with the company citing "the risk of further incitement of violence."

In a reminder that the world was watching, the chat prompted a preemptive note of caution from Europe.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung urged the EU to "mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the US Presidential election." He said the EU was "an enemy of free speech and has no authority of any kind to dictate how we campaign."

During the conversation, Trump also touched on the war in Ukraine and Israel's carnage in besieged Gaza, saying Hamas' surprise blitz on October 7 would have never happened if he was president.