Musk Claims X Hit by ‘Massive DDoS Attack’ During Trump Interview

Elon Musk has claimed X (Twitter) was hit with a “massive DDoS attack” that caused rampant technical glitches throughout his interview with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Musk was set to interview Trump on X through its Spaces feature but was beset by glitches.

The conversation was scheduled to start at 5 p.m. PT but didn’t take place for another 40 minutes. When it did, thousands of users said they were unable to listen to the conversation.

Musk claimed the glitches were the result of a DDoS attack.

A DDoS or distributed denial-of-service attack, is where a platform’s servers are intentionally overwhelmed by network traffic, usually artificially generated, by bad actors looking to cause them to crash.

Microsoft was hit by such an attack last week, though its servers went down because its cybersecurity system was incorrectly implemented, which amplified the impact of the attack instead of mitigating it.

Many have expressed doubt over Musk’s claims of an attack, however, as X’s Spaces feature has routinely been beset by problems.

Similar crashing issues arose when Musk attempted a similar conversation with former Republican candidate Ron DeSantis last May. 

While the specific Space where the interview was meant to be taking place was beset by issues, the rest of X was working fine.

Related:Neuralink Implants Brain Chip in Second Patient, Musk Reveals Progress

During the conversation, Musk said the alleged attack “illustrates, there’s a lot of opposition to people just hearing what President Trump has to say.”

Musk has not commented on the alleged attack since the interview, instead boasting that the conversation was a success with views of the interview and subsequent discussions by other accounts standing at around 1 billion.

The conversation marked Trump’s first return to Twitter since 2021 after being banned for inciting violence related to the Jan. 6 Capitol events. 

Musk reinstated accounts belonging to Trump and other controversial figures as part of his push to showcase X as a platform for free speech.