Charles Lipson

What caused the glitchy interview between Trump and Musk?

Donald Trump (photo: X)

The lengthy interview between Donald Trump and Elon Musk on X last night began 40 minutes late, a technical glitch much of the media celebrated with unrestrained joy. They hate, hate, hate Elon Musk (despite his electric vehicles) – and they hate a media rival. They hate his transformation of Twitter, now X, into an open forum with very little censorship. 

And, of course, they hate Musk’s foray into politics since he has taken the wrong side. Until now, Musk has largely avoided politics. He still describes himself as centrist who supported Obama; he said so in the talk with Trump. But Musk has committed what many pundits consider a mortal sin. He has endorsed Trump. For those reasons and more, Musk’s media competitors celebrated the technical problems that delayed the interview. 

What caused the delay? Musk attributed it to a massive online attack, called a distributed denial of service, or DDOS. If he is correct, then the attack could constitute deliberate interference in the American election process.

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Written by
Charles Lipson
Charles Lipson is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of Chicago, where he founded the programme on International Politics, Economics, and Security.

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