United States Republican presidential nominee and former President Donald Trump has returned to the social media platform X as he attempts to recover from a rocky couple of weeks on the campaign trail.

On Monday, he marked the occasion by sitting down for a chat on Spaces with platform owner Elon Musk, who has publicly endorsed Trump’s campaign for re-election.

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The discussion eventually got under way about 40 minutes late after what Musk claimed was a “massive” cyberattack on the platform, previously known as Twitter. He said the audience would be limited and a recording would be shared afterwards.

Over nearly two hours, the two men largely talked about Trump’s Democratic rival Kamala Harris, the European Union, China, climate change and censorship. The Republican took the chance to talk at length on some of his pet topics and repeat claims he is the victim of a political vendetta, while Musk repeated his support on multiple occasions.

After Trump claimed Harris was a “radical left lunatic” and “worse than Bernie Sanders”, Musk responded: “It’s essential that you win the election for the sake of the country.” About 1.2 million people were listening in.

In the hours leading up to Monday’s talk, Trump’s campaign played it up as “the interview of the century”. He also posted a string of campaign videos, attacking Harris and warning his followers about perceived threats from the political left.

Trump’s campaign has taken a hit since Joe Biden stood aside for Harris. The vice president and her running mate Tim Walz have reenergised the Democrat campaign, appearing at a string of rallies in recent days. Recent polls have given her the edge over Trump in key battleground states in the Midwest.

US Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump campaigned in Bozeman, Montana, on August 9 [Jim Urquhart/Reuters]

A long absence

Trump’s social-media volley on X comes after a long absence from the platform, which used to be his bully pulpit of choice online.

But in 2021, in the final days of his presidency, Trump was suspended from posting to the site.

Twitter executives had cited “the risk of further incitement of violence” as the motivation for their decision: Just two days earlier – on January 6, 2021 – Trump supporters had attacked the United States Capitol after the Republican falsely claimed his defeat in the 2020 elections was the result of voter fraud.

But in October 2022, Musk took control of the social media platform in a $44bn deal. Shortly afterwards, he made good on a pledge to restore Trump to the platform, restoring his Twitter account that November.

Twitter was the first major platform to lift its ban on the former president after the events of January 6.

Still, Trump refused to use Twitter even after his reinstatement. Before Monday, he had only made a single post since 2021, to mark the day he surrendered to the Fulton County Jail in Georgia on August 24, 2023.

The post featured his mugshot and the all-caps message, “Election interference. Never surrender!” He was charged with criminal racketeering in the state for his alleged attempts to subvert the 2020 election, one of four criminal indictments he faces.

Trump currently has more than 88.2 million followers on X, which was renamed in 2023.

Elon Musk, owner of the social media company X, hosted Trump on the platform for a livestreamed conversation on Monday [File: David Swanson/Reuters]

A rocky patch

Since his departure from X, Trump has largely communicated with his followers through the platform Truth Social, owned by his eponymous Trump Media & Technology Group.

But his reach on that platform is smaller, with only 7.53 million users following his account.

Trump’s reemergence on X coincides with a period of uncertainty for his 2024 presidential campaign as he struggles to adjust to the emergence of Vice President Harris as the Democratic nominee.

Musk revealed the timing of the interview on Sunday, precisely three weeks after Democratic incumbent Joe Biden revealed he would withdraw from the presidential race.

Biden threw his support behind Harris, who was officially confirmed as the Democratic nominee last week after the party held an online roll-call vote among its delegates.

Since Harris took up the Democratic mantle, Trump has seen his numbers slide in certain national polls.

While Trump previously led Biden in critical swing states, a survey from The New York Times and Siena College – released on August 10 – found that the Republican nominee had slipped behind Harris in the battlegrounds of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.

Trump trailed Harris by four percentage points in each of those states, with 46 percent support to her 50 percent. In a nationwide match-up, Harris was leading with 48 percent support to Trump’s 47, according to the survey.

The Republican nominee has also struggled in recent media appearances, most notably at a July 31 conference for the National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ).

During his appearance at the conference, Trump stirred controversy by questioning Harris’s identity as a Black and South Asian woman. He also attacked the moderator who delivered the first question.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner,” he told the moderator, Rachel Scott of ABC News, to audible shock from the audience.

A question later, when Scott asked about Harris’s place on the Democratic ticket, Trump falsely suggested that the vice president had concealed her Black identity.

“She was always of Indian heritage. She was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black,” Trump said, in remarks that have been widely criticised as racist.

The news outlet NPR later compared the appearance to “a slow-motion car crash”.

Trump’s campaign has since been in damage control. It promoted the hashtag #TrumpOnX before Monday’s interview with Musk in an effort to drum up viewership.

A spotlight for Musk

Monday’s interview was also another opportunity for Musk, who has 194 million followers on X, to exert his influence on US politics.

As he spoke to Trump, he frequently referred to “my view” on issues such as climate change and fossil fuels, and touted the “sexiness” of his Tesla electric cars. He also spoke on the need for governments to cut back on regulation, a theme eagerly embraced by Trump.

Worth more than $200bn, Musk is considered the world’s richest man, controlling companies including Tesla and the space firm SpaceX.

Musk, who had previously supported Democrats like former President Barack Obama, has shifted to the right in recent years.

After an assassination attempt against Trump on July 13, the businessman publicly offered the Republican candidate his support, posting on X: “I fully endorse President Trump and hope for his rapid recovery.”

Critics have accused Musk of using X as a springboard for the far right and loosening safeguards meant to stem the spread of misinformation on the platform. Musk, however, has framed himself as a champion of free speech.

Monday’s interview is not the first time Musk has used his platform to interview a right-wing political candidate for the November election.

In May 2023, Musk hosted Ron DeSantis for a conversation on X, as the Florida governor launched his Republican presidential campaign on the platform. But the broadcast was marred by false starts and glitches, which Musk credited to servers “straining”.

Musk seemed conscious of avoiding a repeat of that glitchy performance on Monday. The day before, he posted that he was “going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow in advance of the conversation”.

He also invited X users to submit their questions. “This is unscripted with no limits on subject matter, so should be highly entertaining!”