Elon Musk’s staffers cast doubt over tech mogul’s claim ‘massive DDoS attack’ delayed Trump interview

SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA: Tech mogul Elon Musk's interview with former president Donald Trump on X (formerly Twitter) was marred by technical issues preventing many users from tuning in to it. The live conversation started around 8.45 pm ET on Monday, August 12, almost 40 minutes later than the scheduled time.

Musk argued that a "massive DDoS attack" on the social media platform caused the glitch. However, the SpaceX CEO's staffers at X reportedly doubt the interview failed to start at the set time due to the Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack.

X staffers deny Elon Musk's claims of DDoS attack

Reporting about the technical issues, The Verge's Gaby Del Valle and Kylie Robison noted that the rest of X's functions "appear[ed] to be working normally" when the Donald Trump-Elon Musk interview started.

"[A] source at the company confirmed to The Verge that there wasn't actually a denial-of-service attack," they reported. Another X staffer said there was a "99 percent" chance Elon was lying about an attack.

Axios senior media reporter Sara Fischer also dismissed Musk's argument, stating on CNN's 'Laura Coates Live' that it was not a DDoS attack but that "the systems were overwhelmed", causing trouble.

Calling it an "embarrassment" for the tech giant, Fisher added as per Mediaite, "They're trying to make this the video platform of choice, but they can't get a live stream up and running."

After blaming the issue on the DDoS attack, Musk stated that they would continue with a limited live audience and post the conversation later. He also asserted that the system was tested earlier in the day with "8 million concurrent listeners". However, later, around two million listeners tuned into the interview, which lasted for about two hours.

What is a DDoS attack?

According to Microsoft, a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack "targets websites and servers by disrupting network services in an attempt to exhaust an application's resources." This often causes poor performance or takes the site offline entirely.

DDoS attacks are currently the most common cyber threat on the rise, mostly affecting industries like gaming, e-commerce, and telecommunication. In a DDoS attack, a network of bots bombards a website or service with excessive HTTP requests and traffic overwhelming the target, causing delays or disruptions as the site struggles to handle the overflow of requests, driving out legitimate users.

Since a usual DDoS attack affects an entire website, Musk's claim could be viewed with suspicion since the whole X website was not down due to technical difficulties when the interview failed.

Internet sneers at Elon Must as his staffers doubt his claim of DDoS attack

Netizens derided Tesla CEO Elon Musk for putting the blame on the DDoS attack as his interview with Donald Trump got disrupted at the start. Musk was accused of lying, and some claimed the X website was incapable of dealing with a bot problem.

"How stupid does Musk think listeners are? DDOS attack 'Ooooo that's sounds nasty. Musk must be right,'" a user wrote.

"He (Musk) probably felt or were told about the backlash, so he cowered," another opined.

"Of course there wasn't. We were led to believe that a site that can't even deal with the bot problem can solve a DDoS attack in 20 minutes? Lmao," added a third user.

"Of course he was lying.. is there anything he says that is truthful?" Read a fourth response.

"If he were pinocchio, his nose would reach the other side of the continent," someone else quipped.

"Elon claims a DDoS attack is responsible for the "technical difficulties" streaming the Trump interview. No receipts = most likely not true. Spaces servers just weren't up for the job, again," an individual said.

"Yeah, I think it was a cockup at headquarters. But Hey! Blame Democrats for your screwups like always," read one remark.

"They are charlatans and liars all around. I had never expected Elmo to turn out to be so duplicitous. We knew what Trump was like, and this is par for the course with Trump—but not Elmo," another added.

"Well duh. The numbers were low, so he wants to push the clips and vids later where there's a lot more passive impressions on it," remarked another person.

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