In his much-publicized return to the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, Donald Trump described in detail his assassination attempt and blamed the incident on “lack of coordination” – a conversation plagued by technical glitches.

“If I hadn’t turned around, I wouldn’t be talking to you right now – as much as I like you,” Trump told X’s owner Elon Musk. “There was a lack of coordination. … Everyone understands that the building should have been covered.”

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

It didn’t start as planned.

Although more than 878,000 users had joined the conversation more than 40 minutes after the scheduled start time, the interview had not yet started, and many users received a “Details Unavailable” message.

Trump’s team posted that the “interview on X is being overloaded with listeners logging in.” And when the meeting began, Musk apologized for the late start, blaming a “massive attack” that had overloaded the company’s system.

Despite the rocky start, the public discussion between Trump and Musk has highlighted 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 misinformation that sparked the January 6, 2021, attack on Congress and undermined the foundations of American democracy.

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

Monday’s meeting also underscored the developing personal relationship between Trump and Musk, two of the world’s most powerful men who have transformed from bitter rivals to unlikely allies over the course of an election season.

Musk supported Florida Governor Ron DeSantis during the Republican primary.

In May 2023, DeSantis used the social media platform to officially announce his presidential candidacy. It was a disastrous disaster, marred by technical glitches and overwhelmed by more than 400,000 people trying to dial in.

Trump’s Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, noted that Trump had mocked DeSantis at the time.

“Wow! DeSanctus’ Twitter launch is a DISASTER! His whole campaign is going to be a disaster. WATCH HERE!” Trump wrote Monday in a message reposted by Harris’ campaign.

Trump’s supporters were openly frustrated.

“Unavailable???? I planned my whole day around this,” wrote conservative commentator Glenn Beck.

“Please tell Elon we can’t attend,” posted billionaire hedge fund manager Bill Ackman.

Before his talk, Musk posted on the platform that X was conducting “some tests to scale the system” to handle the expected large number of participants.

The chat was an indication that the world was watching and triggered precautionary warnings in Europe.

Thierry Breton, a French business executive and EU commissioner for the internal market, warned Musk of a possible “amplification of harmful content” by broadcasting his interview with Trump. In a letter published on X, Breton called on Musk to “ensure X’s compliance” with EU law, including the Digital Services Act, which was passed in 2022 to address a range of issues, including disinformation.

In a statement, Trump campaign spokesman Steven Cheung called on the EU to “mind its own business instead of trying to interfere in the US presidential election.” He said the EU was “an enemy of free speech and has no authority to dictate our election campaign.”

Musk, who identified himself as a Democrat until a few years ago, endorsed Trump’s candidacy two days after the former president was injured in an attack on a rally in Pennsylvania last month.

Long before he endorsed Trump, Musk’s posts and actions on the platform were increasingly moving to the right, and he also used X to try to influence political discourse around the world. He clashed with a Brazilian judge over censorship, railed against what he calls the “woke mind virus,” and spread false claims that Democrats were secretly flying in migrants to vote in the U.S. election.

Musk has also restored previously suspended accounts, such as that of conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and that of Trump, who was kicked off the platform – then known as Twitter – two days after the Jan. 6 violence, with the company citing “the risk of further incitement of violence.” By November 2022, Musk had bought the company and Trump’s account was restored, although the former president refrained from tweeting until Monday, insisting he was happier on his own site, Truth Social, which he launched during the suspension.

Hours before his interview with Musk, Trump posted a two-and-a-half-minute video on his X account that included footage from his time in office and an audio recording of him saying one of his standard campaign slogans, alluding to the lawsuits against him: “They’re not after me, they’re after you, and I just happen to be in their way and I’m not going to move.”

But Trump’s audience on X is several times larger than that on Truth Social, which went public earlier this year. Trump has just over 7.5 million followers on Truth Social, while his mostly inactive X account has 88 million followers. Musk’s account, which will host the interview, has more than 193 million followers.

Trump’s campaign team did not immediately respond to a question about whether he would also publish his interview with Musk on his own accounts, including X.

The former president has posted only once on X recently, a photo of his mug shot after he turned himself in at an Atlanta jail a year ago on charges he was part of a conspiracy to overturn his election loss in the state.

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Kinnard reported from Columbia, South Carolina