Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump returned to X for a live interview with platform owner Elon Musk Monday, marking one of his most significant uses of the site since he was banned in 2021.
About 40 minutes after the call was scheduled to begin, Musk connected and told listeners that X had been hit by a denial-of-service attack that delayed the call. Trump's campaign, for its part, said the call was experiencing significant demand from listeners.
More than a million people had connected to the call Monday night to listen to the exchange.
The wide-ranging conversation touched on the assassination attempt against Trump, immigration, foreign relations and energy prices, but Trump did not give many details on new or existing policy positions.
Musk reinstated Trump's account on X in 2022, close to two years after Trump was banned from the platform in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 insurrection.
Trump returned to the site only rarely in that time, once to post an image of his mugshot and a fund-raising link after he was indicted for a scheme to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia.
On Monday he also posted a campaign video to his account.
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Trump's interview with Musk echoes another high-traffic event on the platform, when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his presidential bid in a group voice channel that was riddled with technical errors due in part to high demand from hundreds of thousands of listeners.
Musk has said X tested its infrastructure ahead of time for Monday's interview.
Musk endorsed Trump days after the assassination attempt on his life at a campaign event last month.
The Wall Street Journal reported that Musk has pledged to donate $45 million a month to a super PAC that's supporting Trump's campaign. However, Musk denied the report and instead said he is donating "at a much lower level" to a super PAC that values "meritocracy & individual freedom."
