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.
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.
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.