Donald Trump on Tuesday blamed technological issues when explaining why his voice sounded “strange” during his interview with Elon Musk.
People listening to the conversation on X on Monday night noticed that the former president sounded as though he was speaking with a lisp and that his words were slurred. When asked what was going on, a Trump campaign spokesman flat-out denied there was any issue, telling The Daily Beast: “Must be your ears.”
But everyone heard it—including Kamala Harris’ campaign, which wasted no time pointing out that Trump was “slurring” as he rambled about climate change creating more “oceanfront property” and his intention to close the Department of Education.
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Now Trump has conceded that what everyone heard was, in fact, reality.
“Unfortunately, because of the complexity of modern day equipment, and cellphone technology, my voice was, in certain areas, somewhat different and strange,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform Tuesday. “Therefore, we have put out an actual, and perfect, recording of the conversation. ENJOY!!!”
Trump’s X account shared the updated version which Musk acknowledged has “higher quality audio.”
The weird sound of Trump’s voice appears to be just another technical issue affecting the X Spaces event. The interview was delayed by what Musk described as a “massive” distributed denial-of-service (DDos) cyber-attack (he also agreed with another user suggesting “Dems” were to blame), though X employees told The Verge no such attack took place.
The Tesla billionaire later admitted that X made “some unforced errors ourselves” with the event while thanking staffers for “fending off the attacks and fixing our mistakes.”
Last month, Musk said he “fully” endorses Trump for president despite previously supporting candidates running against Trump, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis even launched his doomed presidential campaign last year on X in an event which was also undermined by technical issues.
Trump has also had a change of heart. At a 2022 rally, he called Musk a “bulls--t artist” and also mocked him on Truth Social the same year for “asking me for help on all of his many subsidized projects” during a White House meeting. “I could have said, ‘drop to your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” Trump wrote.
Now, though, Trump seems to be deeply impressed with his newfound ally. “My conversation with Elon last night was heard by a RECORD audience, and was really something special, as Elon himself is very special - and I thank him for such a strong Endorsement!” he wrote in his post Tuesday.
