The Monday X space with Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump was delayed by nearly an hour by a Distributed Denial-of-Service attack (DDoS).
DDoS causes a disruption in a targeted server or network's normal traffic by flooding the target or its surrounding infrastructure with traffic.
The space was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. EST and hosted on Trump's X account. Many X users reported the Trump-Musk space had crashed and prevented them from joining the conversation.
"There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on π. Working on shutting it down. Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later," Musk posted at 8:18 p.m. There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on π. Working on shutting it down.
Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.
β Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
Musk later said his team had tested their systems with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier in the day.
"We will proceed with the smaller number of concurrent listeners at 8:30 ET and then post the unedited audio immediately thereafter," Musk announced in a follow-up post. We will proceed with the smaller number of concurrent listeners at 8:30 ET and then post the unedited audio immediately thereafter https://t.co/oxF8PsNHnZ
β Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 13, 2024
The space began at 8:42 p.m. with Musk announcing X had sustained the DDoS attack.
The conversation is currently underway with over 1 million concurrent listeners.
Early Monday morning, Trump returned to X with his first series of posts in nearly a year.
βAre you better off now than you were when I was president?β he wrote in one of his first posts in nearly a year. βOur economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We're a nation in decline. Make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again.β
βMake America SAFE again. Make America GREAT Again!β he added. Are you better off now than you were when I was president?
Our economy is shattered. Our border has been erased. We're a nation in decline.
Make the American Dream AFFORDABLE again. Make America SAFE again. Make America GREAT Again!
β Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2024
Trump's most recent previous post was from last summer when the former president was booked in Fulton County, Georgia after being charged in a racketeering case.
The mugshot post marked Trump's first post to the platform after being banned from X, then-Twitter, following the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
