Trump claims ‘strange’ voice during Elon Musk interview caused by complex technology

Former President Donald Trump offered a behind-the-scenes perspective concerning his live conversation with X owner Elon Musk after some viewers said his voice sounded odd. 

Trump sat down with Musk on X for a highly anticipated interview Monday evening. Some listeners, who initially encountered difficulty watching the two-hour chat due to technical glitches, alleged that the former president’s speech seemed slurred at times. While other users thought Trump’s voice sounded normal, he responded to the chatter in a social media post the next day and said new technology used during the interview altered his voice. 

“Unfortunately, because of the complexity of modern-day equipment and cellphone technology, my voice was, in certain areas, somewhat different and strange,” Trump said in a Truth Social post Tuesday.

The Republican presidential nominee urged supporters to listen to an updated recording of the conversation that erased his “strange” voice. 

“We have put out an actual, and perfect, recording of the conversation,” Trump celebrated. “ENJOY!!!”

Trump was also quick to note in his Truth Social update that his sit-down interview with Musk “was heard by a RECORD audience.” His comments came after he criticized the “fake news” media for refusing to cover the “all-time record.” 

Musk said in a post to X on Tuesday that the interview reached one billion people across the world. 

For the most part, mainstream outlets such as the Washington Post, New York Times, and Politico focused on the fact that one million people tuned in at the start of the two men’s high-profile conversation. 

Musk, the founder of SpaceX and Tesla, recently endorsed Trump after supporting Democrats for decades. The Big Tech mogul has attracted scrutiny for backing Trump, however, during his exchange with the former president Monday, Musk refused to accept caricatures of himself as a “dyed-in-the-wool long-term Republican.” 

“I stood in line for six hours to shake Obama’s hand,” Musk told Trump, explaining that as a “historically moderate Democrat,” he couldn’t support a “further left administration with Kamala.” 

Technical glitches initially prevented many viewers from listening to the pair’s conversation, with some users being allowed to enter the event and others being met with an image saying that the space was not available.

Musk blamed the problems on a “DDOS” attack or a malicious attempt to flood X with internet traffic to prevent users from accessing the interview. Trump’s daughter-in-law, Lara Trump, later accused the “deep state” of creating the technical difficulties while offering no evidence to support her assertion. 

After the roughly 40-minute debacle on X was resolved, Musk and Trump enjoyed a two-hour-long discussion on a variety of topics, including the border, climate change, and foreign policy. 

Musk held a similar discussion with Gov. Ron Desantis (R-FL) in 2023. Users also experienced difficulties accessing the conversation between the two last year.

At the time, Trump mocked the botched interview between the Florida governor and Musk as a “DISASTER” in a post to Truth Social. 

Vice President Kamala Harris’s campaign jumped on the former president’s past comments as they pointed X users to Trump’s old post.

“Getting some real Ron DeSantis flashbacks,” it said. 

The former president’s lengthy chat with Musk comes as his campaign continues to push Harris to grant interviews to the media. The Democratic presidential nominee has yet to sit down for a major interview since she announced her candidacy and has faced criticism for lacking policy details to her proposed White House agenda. Harris recently promised to sit down for a media interview before the end of August.