Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sat for a friendly two-hour interview with billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Mr Musk's social media platform X, after technical problems delayed the start of the event for more than 40 minutes.
Mr Musk, who has endorsed Mr Trump, blamed the difficulties on a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which a server or network is flooded with traffic in an attempt to shut it down, though his claim could not be verified.
Mr Trump sought to turn the problems into a positive, congratulating Mr Musk on the number of people trying to tune in.
A counter on X showed as many as 1.3 million people were listening at times during the lengthy conversation.
X Spaces with Donald Trump and Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/YhH0YUMGUP
— Christopher Stanley (@cstanley) August 13, 2024
The technical issues recalled a similar event on X in May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suffered a chaotic start to his bid for the republican presidential nomination due to glitches on the platform.
At the time, Mr Trump mocked the Florida governor on his own social media platform, Truth Social.
"My Red Button is bigger, better, stronger, and is working (TRUTH!)" Trump posted, "Yours does not."
Ahead of this event, Mr Musk had written: "Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation."
X did not respond to requests for details or evidence of the alleged cyberattack.
Read more: EU warns Musk over 'harmful content' ahead of Trump interview
The two men exchanged praise repeatedly, with the Tesla chief lauding Mr Trump for his bravery during the attempt on his life last month, and Mr Trump congratulating Mr Musk for his willingness to fire workers demanding better conditions.
"You're the greatest cutter," Mr Trump said. "I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in, you just say: 'You want to quit?' They go on strike, I won't mention the name of the company, but they go on strike. And you say: 'That's okay, you're all gone.'"
Mr Musk, one of the world's richest men, announced his support for Mr Trump shortly after his attempted assassination, despite Republicans' opposition to state support for electric carmakers like Tesla. Mr Musk backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since.
The chat with Mr Musk offered the former US president an unfiltered chance to air his usual mix of grievances, personal attacks and overstated or false claims.
The South African-born entrepreneur let Mr Trump lead the conversation and did not challenge his inaccurate statements, like the assertion that other countries were sending criminals from their prisons across the southern US border, or that bacon prices had risen four or five times.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 12, 2024
The talk was Mr Trump's latest effort to seize the spotlight from his Democratic rival, US Vice President Kamala Harris, whose 11th-hour entry into the race has galvanised her party and boosted democratic fundraising.
Ms Harris has dominated headlines with a series of high-energy rallies since she replaced Mr Biden as the party's candidate three weeks ago.
Her momentum could get another boost from the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago.
In a statement after the interview, a Harris campaign spokesperson, Joseph Costello, said: "Trump's entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself, self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024."
Harris momentum
Mr Trump insulted his election rival several times, referring to her as "third rate", "incompetent" and "a radical left lunatic".
However then he praised her looks.
"She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live," Mr Trump said about a picture of Ms Harris on the cover of Time Magazine.
"It was a drawing, and actually, she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania," he added, referring to his wife Melania Trump.
The former president also expressed anger that Ms Harris had been swapped in for Mr Biden on the Democratic ticket.
"She hasn't done an interview since this whole scam started," Mr Trump said, claiming that Mr Biden dropping off the ticket was a "coup".
Mr Trump had been leading Mr Biden in many polls of battleground states likely to be critical to the outcome of the 5 November election, but is now trailing Ms Harris in some of the same states.
Mr Trump used the platform to praise Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un - all authoritarian strongmen - describing them at the "top of their game".
Trump back on X
Mr Trump returned to X, formerly known as Twitter, with a series of posts for the first time in a year, reviving an account that had served as a main method of communication in previous campaigns and his four years in the White House, including his followers' 6 January 2021 attack on the US Capitol.
The former US president's access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Mr Musk's ownership of X after being suspended by the platform's previous owners following the 6 January attack, citing concerns he would incite violence.
Mr Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social platform, which was launched in February 2022, but his posts there reach a much smaller audience than on X.
