Elon Musk Pulls the Plug on Pro-Trump X Town Hall: ‘Let’s Cancel This’

Nov 06, 2024

Elon Musk scrapped a political town hall on X shortly after it started Monday blaming technical difficulties.

The virtual event on the eve of the election is just the latest in a series of town halls Musk has used to urge voters to support Donald Trump. But this event, taking place on his own platform, started around 20 minutes later than scheduled and only went downhill from there.

A moderator on the call supposedly had four callers waiting on the line to put questions to Musk—but each time they were called on, no one answered. The unidentified moderator passed along what was apparently one of the caller’s questions, asking simply if “we’re gonna win?”

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“Well, I think if people vote tomorrow, we’re definitely gonna win,” Musk answered, before adding: “You know what? I think let’s cancel this given the—there seem to be some technical challenges.”

Elon Musk cancels his tele-town hall because of technical issues 😂 pic.twitter.com/GPhw6BThdC

The Tesla CEO said he would instead host a Spaces event on X. That event began right after the town hall but apparently had no audio and lasted just one minute, according to CNN. Musk then appeared to abandon the enterprise altogether.

“Instead of a town hall Q&A tonight, I recommend listening to this discussion about the election I had today with Joe Rogan,” Musk wrote in a post which included the video of his appearance on Rogan’s podcast.

The scrubbed town hall isn’t the first political event to go off the rails on the platform formerly known as Twitter. In May 2023, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis decided to announce his ill-fated presidential campaign on X alongside Musk—who once announced that he would vote for DeSantis in 2024. The event was plagued with glitches and delays, prompting mockery from Trump.

Then in August 2024—by which time both DeSantis and Musk had bent the knee to the former president—Trump got his own taste of X’s technical issues. The Republican nominee’s Spaces interview with Musk was similarly delayed, with Musk claiming a cyberattack was taking place and agreeing with another X user who suggested “Democrats” might be to blame.

Find the Daily Beast’s coverage of the 2024 election here. Subscribe to The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, Amazon Music, or Overcast.