Trump and Musk fans began panicking. Can you hear anything, they tweeted nervously? Nope, me neither. Musk eventually popped up online to say he had tested his gear with "eight million concurrent listeners".
But the system was obviously crashing. Musk went on to blame a cyber attack. His opponents responded gleefully "LMAO"-"laughing my ass off" in internet speak.
X, the site formerly known as Twitter, last night stuck up two fingers at its terminally online owner. How satisfying that all those billions couldn't buy the richest man in the world a social media platform that works when he wants it to.
Meanwhile, Trump's Truth Media, which owns Truth Social, a carbon copy of Twitter, has been dropping in value because of his promise to join Musk's platform. It recently posted a loss of $16 million. I would have loved to be a fly-on-the-wall at Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort last night as X went on the blink. The Republican presidential candidate's aides will have been on the receiving end of a volley of furious expletives.
Democratic vice-president Kamala Harris is having all the luck. While Trump and Musk fumed impotently at the silent screen last night, memes appeared of her dancing merrily in front of the blank purple space on X.
The humiliation of the two biggest egos on the planet was complete.
Before the X debacle, Trump was already gibbering that Harris was using AI to fake the size of her crowds.
This was nonsense of course. I was in Philadelphia last week to watch her introduce Tim Walz as her White House running mate in front of 10,000 people and the excitement level was through the roof.
This story is from the August 13, 2024 edition of Evening Standard.
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This story is from the August 13, 2024 edition of Evening Standard.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
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