Elon Musk Accuses X of Causing DDOS Attack That Disrupted Trump Interview
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Ever found yourself in a pickle trying to catch Elon Musk's interview with Donald Trump on the social media platform, X? You're not alone! The show was supposed to kick off at 8 p.m. ET, but alas, it seemed like nobody could tune in. So, what gave, you ask? Well, we've dug a bit and here's the lowdown.
Elon Musk himself spilled the beans on Twitter at 8:18 p.m., pointing a finger at a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack. His tweet read, "Looks like a hefty DDOS attack on X. Trying to squash it. Worst-case scenario, we'll move forward with a lesser number of live listeners and drop the conversation later."
Now, it's worth mentioning that a DDOS attack functions by overloading servers with excessive requests, making it tricky to differentiate between such an attack and a massive wave of visitors to a given site. Given the interest in both Musk and Trump as public figures, there's no surprise that folks were eager to tune in. Interestingly, The Verge claims a source within X told them there wasn't a DDOS attack at hand. This unknown source is quoted as saying there was a 99% chance that Elon was pulling a fast one regarding the attack.
Musk went on to mention that X had put their system through its paces with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier in the day. If Musk is indeed being truthful about his system's capacity to handle 8 million listeners, it's not hard to imagine that more than 8 million people might've wanted to listen to Trump and Musk's nonsense. The world's population is 8 billion, and Twitter has roughly 500 million users worldwide.
In his follow-up tweet, Musk promised, "We'll keep it rolling with the smaller number of concurrent listeners at 8:30 p.m. ET and post the unedited audio as soon as possible after." The interview eventually got underway around 8:40 p.m. ET.
It wouldn't be the first time Musk encountered technical hiccups on X's Spaces audio platform. Recall the time when Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was getting all hype announcing his presidential bid back in May 2023?
In a more unsettling turn of events, crypto scammers seem to be capitalizing on Musk's technical woes. One such misleading video on YouTube is currently circulating, featuring a deepfake of Musk. As of now, this video boasts hundreds of thousands of viewers. Please, avoid clicking on any links within that video. They're nothing but scams!
- The tech mogul, Elon Musk, suggested a distributed denial-of-service (DDOS) attack might have disrupted his interview with Donald Trump on the social media platform X.
- The Verge's source within X controversy-mongered there was a 99% chance Musk was being deceptive about the DDOS attack.
- If Musk's claim of handling 8 million concurrent listeners on X is accurate, it's plausible that more people than that might have wanted to listen to Trump and Musk's conversation.
- Crypto scammers have reportedly capitalized on Musk's technical troubles on X's Spaces audio platform, circulating a deepfake video featuring Musk with hundreds of thousands of viewers.
