Elon Musk-Donald Trump interview: Is X ready to host the event?

Former President Donald Trump is set to give an interview Monday night with tech billionaire Elon Musk on X, formerly Twitter.
Trump has previously teased the interview on his social media platform, Truth Social, and Musk confirmed Sunday that the interview will take place on the platform he owns Monday at 8 p.m. ET.
This is not the first time X has hosted a major campaign event this election cycle: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his brief presidential campaign in 2023 in a Space with Musk that was marred by technical difficulties.
Ahead of Trump’s return to X and the expected large audience that will be tuning into the interview, has the social media platform learned from the issues that arose during DeSantis’ interview?
Here’s what to know.
Elon Musk, Donald Trump interview:When is Musk’s interview with Trump? Date, start time, how to stream
Musk has not given any clues as to what could be discussed in the interview, other than it would be “unscripted with no limits on subject matter.” He made a call out for questions and comments in a post Sunday night.
The billionaire and X owner is hoping to avoid any technical difficulties that could arise before the interview with Trump, posting Sunday that he will do “some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow.”
At one point, Musk replied to another user’s post Sunday about the event, adding “I hope it works,” with a cry-laughing and prayer emoji. He also posted a 20-minute video playing video games on that night in a “streaming test,” alluding to the upcoming livestream interview with Trump.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his campaign for president in 2023 in an interview and question-and-answer with Elon Musk on X.
During the live event with Musk, DeSantis and moderator David Sacks were plagued by technical difficulties, which persisted for more than 20 minutes before the governor was able to deliver his speech and participate in a question-and-answer session.
The interview between Musk and Trump will be streamed live on X, formerly Twitter, on Monday, Aug. 12 at 8 p.m. ET.
The interview will be hosted on Trump’s account, @realDonaldTrump, X announced.
Since taking over the social media platform, Musk reinstated Trump’s account in 2022, which was banned in January 2021 in the final days of his term.
Although Trump typically prefers to post on his own social media platform, Truth Social, he made a return to the platform Monday. Trump’s first post in nearly a year ahead of his Monday evening conversation with Musk was a 2:30-long campaign video.