Donald Trump blamed technical problems on Tuesday when explaining why his voice sounded “weird” during his interview with Elon Musk.
Listeners to the conversation on X on Monday night noticed that the former president sounded lisp and slurred his words. When asked what was wrong, a Trump campaign spokesperson flatly denied there was a problem, telling The Daily Beast, “That must be your ears.”
But everyone heard it – including Kamala Harris’s campaign team, which wasted no time in pointing out that Trump was “slandering” when he ranted that climate change would create more “waterfront real estate” and that he intended to shut down the Department of Education.
Now Trump admitted that what everyone had heard was actually true.
“Unfortunately, due to the complexity of modern devices and cell phone technology, my voice sounded a little off and odd in certain areas,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social platform on Tuesday. “That’s why we have released a real and perfect recording of the conversation. ENJOY!!!”
Trump’s X-Account shared the updated version, which Musk said had “higher sound quality.”
The strange 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) cyberattack (he also agreed with another user who suspected the “Democrats” were to blame), though X staff told The Verge that no such attack occurred.
The Tesla billionaire later admitted that X made “some unnecessary mistakes of his own” at the event and thanked employees for “fending off the attacks and fixing our mistakes.”
Last month, Musk said he was “fully supporting” Trump for president, although he has previously backed candidates who ran against Trump, including Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. DeSantis even launched his doomed presidential campaign on X last year, at an event that was also marred by technical issues.
Trump has also changed his mind. At a rally in 2022, he called Musk a “bull artist” and that same year mocked him on Truth Social for “asking him for help with all his many subsidized projects” during a White House meeting. “I could have said, ‘Get on your knees and beg,’ and he would have done it,” Trump wrote.
But now Trump seems to be deeply impressed by his new ally. “My conversation with Elon last night was heard by a RECORD audience and was truly special because Elon himself is very special – and I thank him for this strong support!” he wrote in his post on Tuesday.
