Musk-Trump interview: Trump claims, ‘Illegal immigration saved my life’

Elon Musk's highly anticipated interview with former President Donald Trump commenced with the conversation by asking Trump about the assassination attempt at his Pennsylvania rally last month.

"I didn't know I had that much blood," Trump remarked about the shooting, adding that it was the "best alternative you could think of," considering he wasn't more seriously injured.

“I’m a believer, now. I’m more of a believer in God, I think,” Trump said.

Trump further claimed that he was targeted because of his stance on immigration.

The former president said that hewould surely go back to Butler, Pennsylvania in October, where he survived an assassination attempt on July 13.

Musk seemed to suggest in a lighthearted manner that the charts, which caused Trump to adjust his position just moments before the gunshots were fired, had actually saved his life.

“I just want to say that I think a lot of people admire your courage under fire there,” Musk said.

Jokingly replying back, Trump said, "Illegal immigration saved my life," nodding to the topic and a chart he was talking about when shots began to fly.

It may be mentioned here, that Trump claims, "You have millions of people coming in a month. And they have another 5 months."

Whereas, factually, US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reported 7.1 million arrests for illegal crossings from Mexico between January 2021 and June 2024.

However, these figures only represent arrests, not individual people. Due to pandemic-era asylum restrictions, many individuals made multiple attempts to cross the border without facing legal consequences, meaning the actual number of people is lower than the total number of arrests.

Trump's comments on Joe Biden's withdrawal

Donald Trump, further went on toclaim that Joe Biden was forced to drop out of the US Presidential race due to a "coup".

"I beat Biden so bad in the debate, he was forced out of the race - one of the greatest debate performances ever. Biden's exit, it was a coup," the former president claimed.

Musk and Trump interview captures widespread attention

The talk between Musk and Trump has drawn a deterrent response from Europe. Thierry Breton, a French business executive and the European Union's commissioner for the internal market expressed distress over the possible “strengthening of harmful content” that could arise from broadcasting the interview.

In a letter posted on X, Breton urged Musk to ensure the platform sticks to EU regulations, mainly the Digital Services Act, enacted in 2022 to combat disinformation.

Responding to Breton’s warning, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung criticised the EU, suggesting they should "mind their own business" rather than interfering in the US presidential election.

Musk endorsed Trump’s candidacy just a few days after the former president survived an assassination attempt at a rally.

Trump- Musk chat on X hit by 'massive' cyberattack

Elon Musk's highly anticipated interview with former President Donald Trump commenced after a 40-minute delay caused by technical issues on X's Spaces platform.

Eighteen minutes into the interview, which was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. EDT, according to Musk, the interview, which was more of an informal talk with the Republican presidential candidate, was halted due to a "Distributed Denial-of-Service" (DDOS) attack.

"There appears to be a massive DDOS attack on X. Working on shutting it down," Musk wrote on the platform.

Notably, X faced similar issues when Musk interviewed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on the social media platform in May 2023, which Musk blamed on X’s servers being overwhelmed by the traffic.

Despite the glitches, the Trump-Musk interview was able to attract over a million listeners from across the world.

Trump started by congratulating Musk, ‘You broke records, you silence voices.’, he said.

(With inputs from agencies)