Donald Trump has recounted his assassination attempt in vivid detail and promised the largest deportation in US history during a high-profile return to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter – in a conversation with X’s owner Elon Musk that was plagued by technical glitches.

Musk, who has endorsed Trump, began the event more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time. He blamed the difficulties on a distributed denial-of-service attack, in which a server or network is flooded with traffic in an attempt to shut it down, though his claim was not confirmed.

The rare public conversation between Trump and Musk, which lasted about two hours and was overwhelmingly friendly, revealed little that’s new about Trump’s plans for a second term. The former president spent much of the conversation discussing his recent assassination attempt and illegal immigration.

“If I had not turned my head, I would not be talking to you right now  as much as I like you,” Trump told Musk.

More than 1.3 million people were listening about 45 minutes into the conversation, according to a counter on X.

Trump sought to turn the problems into a positive, congratulating Musk on the number of people trying to tune in.

The former president sounded at times as if he had a lisp, many listeners on X pointed out. Some said it made him sound like a cartoon character, others suggested it could be due to audio compression issues.

A person listens on a laptop as Elon Musk interviews Donald Trump on X. – Reuters

The technical issues recalled a similar event on X in May 2023, when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suffered a chaotic start to his bid for the Republican presidential nomination due to glitches on the platform.

At the time, Trump mocked DeSantis on his own, social media platform, Truth Social.

Still, the meeting underscored just how much the US political landscape has changed less than four years after Trump was permanently banned by the social media platform’s former leadership for spreading disinformation that sparked the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress.

Such disinformation has thrived at X under Musk’s leadership.

The session was also intended to serve as a way for the former president to reach potentially millions of voters directly. It was also an opportunity for X, a platform that relies heavily on politics, to redeem itself after some struggles.

Musk spent much of the early part of the interview lauding Trump for his bravery during the attempt on his life on July 13, when his ear was struck by a bullet.

The former Trump critic said the Republican nominee’s toughness, as demonstrated by his reaction to last month’s shooting, was critical for national security.

“There’s some real tough characters out there,” Musk said. “And if they don’t think the American president is tough, they will do what they want to do.”

Musk, the world’s richest person, announced his support for Trump shortly after the shooting. He backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but has tacked rightward since.

"I think we're at a fork in the road of destiny, of civilisation, and I think we need to take the right path, and I think you're the right path," he told Trump as the interview concluded.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk in 2017. – AP

The chat with Musk offered Trump an unfiltered chance to air his usual mix of grievances, personal attacks and overstated or false claims.

Musk let Trump lead the conversation and did not challenge Trump's inaccurate statements, like the assertion that other countries were sending criminals from their prisons across the southern US border, or that bacon prices had risen four or five times.

In an interview that was light on policy detail, Trump also appeared to praise Musk for firing workers.

“You’re the greatest cutter. I mean, I look at what you do," Trump said to Musk about staff cuts.

"You walk in, you just say ‘You want to quit?’. They go on strike – I won’t mention the name of the company – but they go on strike. And you say ‘That’s okay, you’re all gone’.”

Trump said he plans to return to Butler, Pennsylvania, the site of the attack, for a rally in October.

As the conversation unfolded, Trump delivered his usual mix of grievances, exaggerated claims and personal attacks, with Musk offering occasional encouragement.

A phone shows Donald Trump’s X Space with Elon Musk as a co-host. – Reuters

Trump claimed without evidence that Russia would not have invaded Ukraine if he were still president and praised Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un – all authoritarian strongmen – as being at the “top of their game”.

Trump insulted Democratic candidate Kamala Harris several times, referring to her as "third rate", "incompetent" and "a radical left lunatic".

But then he praised her looks.

"She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live," Trump said about a picture of Harris on the cover of Time magazine.

"It was a drawing, and actually, she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania," he added, referring to his wife Melania Trump.

He also expressed anger that Harris had been swapped in for Biden on the Democratic ticket.

“She hasn’t done an interview since this whole scam started,” Trump said, claiming falsely that Biden dropping off the ticket was a “coup”.

Trump had been leading Biden in many polls of battleground states likely to be critical to the outcome of the November 5 election, but is now trailing Harris in some of the same states.

'This was a coup', Trump tells Musk on Harris replacing Biden. – Reuters

In a statement after the interview, a Harris campaign spokesperson, Joseph Costello, said: "Trump's entire campaign is in service of people like Elon Musk and himself – self-obsessed rich guys who will sell out the middle class and who cannot run a livestream in the year 2024."

The interview provided an opportunity for Trump to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is facing new headwinds.

Harris has erased Trump’s lead in opinion polls and energised Democratic voters with a series of high-energy rallies since she replaced Biden as the party’s candidate three weeks ago. Her momentum could get another boost from the Democratic National Convention next week in Chicago.

Trump returned to X, formerly known as Twitter, with a series of posts on Monday for the first time in a year, reviving an account that had served as a main method of communication in previous campaigns and his four years in the White House, including his followers’ January 6 attack on the US Capitol.

Donald Trump and Elon Musk at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in 2020. – Reuters

Trump’s access to his account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk’s ownership of X after being suspended by the platform’s previous owners following the January 6 attack, citing concerns he would incite violence.

Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social platform, which was launched in February 2022, but his posts there reach a much smaller audience than on X.

Musk, who heads electric car company Tesla, has echoed Trump’s claims about voter fraud and Biden’s immigration policies.

Musk has started an external super PAC spending group to support Trump’s campaign. The political action committee is now under investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws on gathering voter information.

Trump, a longstanding critic of electric vehicles, shifted gears after Musk’s endorsement.

“I’m for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon endorsed me very strongly. So I have no choice,” Trump said at an early August rally.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fein, campaigning in support of Harris, called Trump a “sellout”.

The Biden administration has worked to popularise electric vehicles through tax breaks and other support as part of its broader goal of reducing carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

Republicans in Congress, including Trump’s running mate Senator JD Vance, have opposed those subsidies.

 Donald Trump participates in an interview with Elon Musk on X from Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida. – X via Reuters