Musk claims X hit by ‘massive DDOS attack’ as Trump stream malfunctions

WASHINGTON (TND) — A “conversation” between former President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Musk’s social media platform X faced technical difficulties as people tried to access the audio stream Monday.

Musk claimed the issues were caused by a “massive DDOS attack” on X.

“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down,” he wrote, referencing a “Distributed Denial of Service,” which is a federal criminal act that involves flooding a site with data to overwhelm it and knock it offline.

In a separate post, he added that his staff “tested the system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier today.”

While X initially showed that at least 115,000 users joined successfully, some users said they received a notification informing them the stream wasn’t working properly.

“So many people tried to join the Twitter Space with Elon Musk and Donald Trump that it’s now malfunctioning, with many users unable to get in,” Shadow of Ezra posted on X. “Trump and Elon have broken the internet.”

Outage tracker Downdetector reported a spike in reports of X being inaccessible to users starting before the interview but it could not be immediately verified whether this was due to a malicious attack. The rest of X appeared to be operating normally, and X users questioned whether there was a DDOS attack or if the Spaces event was just overwhelmed with people trying to listen in.

The steam, despite its issues, kicked off at 8:42 p.m. ET. By around 9:20 p.m., at least 1.2 million users were listening.

The National Desk eventually accessed the stream, with Trump telling Musk about the assassination attempt on him on July 13. During a rally inPennsylvania, a gunman shot Trump in the ear, with Trump moving his head at just the last minute.

He described it as an act of God.

“It’s a miracle,” Trump said. “If I hadn’t turned my head, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now,” Trump said.

Trump said something similar Friday night at a rally in Montana, as the former president expressed gratitude to God for saving his life.

“For those of you who don’t believe in God, I believe that there’s only one reason that could have happened because the chances were so, so small,” Trump said Friday night to a crowd of followers at a campaign event in Montana.

Trump’s chat with Musk shifted from the shooting to the crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border. Trump said immigration issues will get even worse if Vice President Kamala Harris is elected president and vowed to start a massive deportation if reelected.

“We’re going to have the largest deportation in this country,” Trump said, noting that Biden and Harris have allowed violent criminals to illegally enter the U.S.

His criticism for Harris, as well as Biden, didn’t stop there. He said the two are responsible for a deplorable economy, describing it as “a disaster.”

“If you vote for her, you ought to have your head examined,” Trump said of Harris.

“If we have her as president — if we have a Democrat as president — I don’t think our country can survive,” he added.

Trump went on to talk about the war between Russia and Ukraine, saying he has great relationships, respectively, with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy. He said he is confident the war never would have erupted if he were still president.

Musk, who aside from X also owns Tesla and SpaceX, previously endorsed Trump in the presidential race. Musk announced his support for Trump following the attempt on the former president’s life.

“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Musk wrote on X, sharing a video of Trump raising his fist less than an hour after the shooting.

__________

EDITOR’S NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this report.