The long-awaited X Spaces discussion between former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk launched with technical difficulties as a result of an alleged DDOS attack on X servers, Musk announced in an X post. The tech mogul added that the discussion will be held with a smaller number of viewers and uploaded at a later time if necessary. Despite the technical difficulties, the historic space has already drawn tens of millions of views in less than an hour and set streaming records on other platforms, including Rumble.
“There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on 𝕏. Working on shutting it down,” Musk wrote shortly after 8 p.m. Eastern Time on Monday. “Worst case, we will proceed with a smaller number of live listeners and post the conversation later.”
In a follow-up post, the X owner stated that the space was tested for upwards of 8 million live viewers earlier in the day. He further added that the space will proceed with fewer listeners at 8:30, followed by an immediate upload.
Despite the technical difficulties, the Space appears to be generating historic interest and view counts across the internet. Former President Trump’s post advertising the space has already racked up an astonishing 35 million X views in less than an hour.
Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski announced that a mirror stream hosted by culture podcaster “The Quarreling” has shattered the site’s streaming record, as more than 100,000 live viewers are populating that stream alone. Other streams, including one hosted by conservative commentator Benny Johnson, have pulled in hundreds of thousands of additional viewers between them.
When the space eventually launched, Trump congratulated Musk for “breaking every record in the book” with the historic stream.
It is expected that the conversation will ultimately draw hundreds of millions of viewers once it is uploaded in its entirety.
During the first Republican presidential primary debate last August, the former president’s interview with Tucker Carlson drew more than 267 million views on X alone. The Trump-Musk Space is expected to shatter that record
