WASHINGTON — A highly anticipated live interview between Elon Musk and former President Donald Trump on the social network X was temporarily hindered by what Musk described as a “massive” cyberattack. The interview, which took place Monday evening, faced significant disruptions that rendered the platform inaccessible to many users at its scheduled start time.

According to Burkina Information Agency, the platform experienced a massive Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack aimed at its servers, intended to cause an outage. The interview was initially set to begin at 8:00 p.m. US East Coast time but started about 30 minutes later due to the cyberattack. Despite these challenges, the conversation eventually commenced, although it was unclear if all users were able to access the live event. By 8:50 p.m., the interview had attracted over a million listeners.

Musk has committed to publishing the recording of the interview on his X account promptly after its conclusion to ensure that those unable to attend live can still experience the dialogue. The conversation marked a notable moment as Trump’s X account was recently reinstated after being suspended following the Capitol attack on January 6, 2021. This reinstatement came after Musk’s acquisition of the social network in 2022.

Despite the reinstatement, Trump has not been actively posting on X, preferring to use his platform, Truth Social, for his regular communications. The interview, which Musk promised would be conducted “without a predetermined script and without limits on the topics covered,” promised to be highly engaging yet was also seen as risky, given both individuals’ propensity for controversial statements and the platform’s criticism for allegedly serving as a conduit for radical right-wing rhetoric and misinformation.