Musk and Trump’s ‘conversation’ kicks off with a fiasco – Technologist

Only American citizens can vote in the US presidential election, but everyone is concerned. This was evident in the “conversation” between Elon Musk and Donald Trump on X. On Monday, August 12, the Republican candidate for the November election made his comeback to the social media network, now owned by the founder of SpaceX and Tesla. The former president had been banned from the platform after the assault on Capitol Hill on January 6, 2021.

European Commissioner Thierry Breton had sent Musk a lengthy warning before the live chat, urging him to abide by European laws and specifying that the moderation rules applied to him as well. The billionaire elegantly replied through a meme that read: “Take a big step back and literally, fuck your own face!”

Trump’s communications director, Steven Cheung, condemned the interference: “The European Union should mind their own business instead of trying to meddle in the U.S. Presidential election. Only in Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’ America can an un-Democratic foreign organization feel emboldened enough to tell this country what to do.”

Memories of Ron DeSantis

Streaming began at 8 pm on Monday evening (2 am in Paris). Having watched Musk test the resilience of his network since the previous evening, everyone had forgotten about the technical issues that disrupted Florida governor Ron DeSantis’ debut as a Republican nominee back in May 2023. However, before 8 pm, a technical problem prevented everyone from joining the discussion. Billionaire Bill Ackman, a supporter of Trump, pleaded on the network, “Please let Elon know we can’t join,” before expressing indignation, “It’s the evil empire shutting down free speech once again.”

At 8:18 pm, Musk eventually announced that he had been the victim of a cyber attack. “There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later,” he posted, before adding, “We tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today.” The attack was unconfirmed, but the rest of the X network continued to operate normally.

At 8:30 pm, listeners were admitted to the platform with some background music playing, followed by silence. At 8:40 pm, the live chat finally began.

Opposition to illegal immigration

The exciting part of the evening was over. The “conversation” demonstrated that real political interviewing is a skilled profession, but also delighted those, like investor Mark Minervini, who felt that the two men chatted in a way that was relatable to the average person.

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