Former President Donald Trump is set to make a return to X with a live and unscripted interview that “should be highly entertaining,” according to platform’s owner, Elon Musk, who will be conducting the interview himself.
Musk, who acquired X in October 2022, announced that he would be live-streaming his conversation with Trump on the platform formerly known as Twitter.
The live conversation is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET on Monday, Aug. 12, according to Musk.
It will be livestreamed on Trump’s X account @readlDonaldTrump.
“This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO wrote Sunday in a post on X, also telling viewers to post any questions or comments they have under the chat.
Trump and Musk
Trump’s return to X comes after his account was banned from the platform (then Twitter) in 2021 shortly after the Jan. 6 demonstrations on Capitol Hill with just a few days left in his term. Musk acquired Twitter just four days after Trump announced his candidacy for the 2024 election. Must reinstated Trump’s account in November 2022 after conducting an online poll asking users whether or not it should be restored.
Despite being released from the ban, Trump only used his X account once, posting his mugshot on Aug. 24, 2023, with the words, “Election Interference, Never Surrender!” and a link to his 2024 campaign website. The 45th president instead has opted to use his own social media platform, Truth Social, which he launched in February 2022, around a year after his Twitter ban.
Musk, who has 193.8 million X followers, publicly endorsed the Republican presidential nominee after Trump survived an assassination attempt last month at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.
“I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery,” Musk wrote in a post on July 13.
Musk also created a pro-Trump political action committee called America PAC, which is under investigation in Michigan for allegedly violating state laws on collecting voter information.
Trump has since tapped former Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance as his running mate in the 2024 election while Democrat presidential nominee Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as hers.
Musk’s Last Big Livestream
Musk last year held a live conversation with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on X to announce the latter’s presidential bid. But the livestream suffered technical difficulties as more than 400,000 viewers attempted to tune in.
DeSantis later dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump for president.
Ahead of the highly anticipated live conversation with Trump, Musk said that he would run “some scaling tests” to examine the platform’s streaming capabilities in an apparent attempt to avoid a repeat of last year’s interview.
Trump has published several new posts on X ahead of his interview with Musk.
“Are you better off now than you were when I was president?” Trump wrote in his first post since last August.
The former president on Monday then uploaded several campaign videos targeting Harris. He also reposted a statement from Team Trump, which dubbed the upcoming livestream as “the interview of the century.”