Donald Trump's much-awaited interview with Elon Musk on X today was hit by major tech issues even before it could start, forcing the billionaire entrepreneur to run the interview only for a small number of users as several others were unable to tune in.
The interview could provide Trump an opportunity to seize the limelight at a time his Democratic rival for the US presidential election, Vice President Kamala Harris, has erased his lead in opinion polls and energised Democratic voters with a series of high-energy rallies. The Trump campaign has called it the "interview of the century".
"This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!" 53-year-old Musk, who has an estimated net worth of $235 billion, posted in a preview of the interview on Sunday.
Trump's access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk's ownership of X after being suspended by the platform's previous owners following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his supporters.Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social social media platform, which was launched in February 2022.
Trump, 78, posted on X for the first time on Monday in more than a year ahead of the interview, sharing a campaign video in which he portrayed himself as the victim of persecution by forces seeking to "destroy" the United States.
Musk, one of the Democrats' fiercest critics, endorsed Trump last month just minutes after the Republican narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a rally.