Former President Donald Trump sat down for a highly anticipated interview with tech billionaire Elon Musk on Monday, but the event didn't go off without a hitch.
The interview, originally scheduled to begin at 8:00 PM ET, faced an unexpected delay due to a large-scale distributed denial of service (DDOS) attack, pushing back the start time at 8:45 PM ET.
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Musk took to social media to address the issue, stating: “Looks like there's a massive DDOS attack on X. Working to shut it down. Worst case we'll proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and We'll post the conversation later.”
There seems to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working to close it.
In the worst case scenario, we'll proceed with a small number of live listeners and publish the conversation later.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
He also mentioned that earlier in the day, the platform had been tested with 8 million simultaneous listeners without any issues.
Today we tested the system with 8 million simultaneous listeners https://t.co/ymqGBFEJX0
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Given the prominence of this conversation, there was of course a 100% chance of DDOS attacks. We also had some unforced errors ourselves.
But good job Team X defending the attacks and fixing our mistakes!
All's well that ends well.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Catherine Herridge, an Emmy-winning national security investigative reporter, offered insight into the situation, explaining to X that a DDOS attack is designed to overwhelm a server with traffic, rendering it unusable for legitimate users. While a forensic review can reveal the source of the attack, it's not always a guarantee.
Explainer…
DDOS is a distributed denial of service attack.
This is a cyberattack designed to cripple a network resource (server) by overwhelming it with traffic and making it unavailable to users.
Usually a temporary + malicious attempt to disrupt normal traffic.
— Catherine Herridge (@C__Herridge) August 13, 2024
Despite the attack, at least 21 million people still tuned in to the conversation.
21 million tuned in to Trump's Space with Elon Musk and 135 million views to date. This conversation is breaking records. 🔥 pic.twitter.com/NcGHl8uo9g
— Clown World ™ 🤡 (@ClownWorld_) August 13, 2024
Meanwhile, leaked emails from the campaign teams of Vice President Kamala Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz revealed a frantic response to the event. One email, with the subject line “The two worst people you know are live tonight,” accused Musk of trying to control American democracy and criticized him for giving a platform to what they described as “the deranged and hateful” agenda of Trump.
.@KamalaHarrisit's so on right now. This is the owner of an email just sent by your campaign.
Democrats want all tech executives to be Democrats.
This is a foreshadowing of how Kamala would target and shut down conservative business owners like@elonmusk. pic.twitter.com/mrZo7teM5I
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) August 13, 2024
The email also pointed to Musk's financial support of Trump, claiming that he is using his vast resources to support the MAGA team. In a not-so-subtle plea for cash, the email urged supporters to donate $25 to help Harris and Walz combat what they called “lies.”
President Trump has been speaking for over an hour to over a million people about his winning agenda for the American people.
Kamala is VERY MAD about this as she refuses to talk to the media, do an interview or even explain what platform she is running on.
so pathetic pic.twitter.com/H9KO7bErs7
— Trump War Room (@TrumpWarRoom) August 13, 2024
Despite all this, Elon Musk has claimed that the conversation has reached a total of one billion views.
Combined views of the conversation with @realDonaldTrump and further discussion by other accounts now ~1 billion https://t.co/s8x8QmdmnY
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
You can check out the entire conversation below.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2024
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