On Monday night, billionaire Musk and former U.S. President Donald Trump engaged in a live conversation on the X platform that drew millions of Internet users to tune in.

To build momentum for the conversation, Trump also made a rare update on X. On Monday morning, Trump posted on X to promote his conversation with Musk and released several campaign ads.

It was Trump's first post since he was banned from using the platform in January 2021 following the Capitol riots. Although Musk reinstated Trump's account shortly after he bought Twitter (now X), Trump has turned to his own social media platform, Truth Social, to post over the past three years.

The conversation was scheduled to begin at 8 p.m. ET, but it didn't get off to a smooth start, with many users clicking through to X Spaces to find the relevant link was down.

Musk then posted on X that the platform was suffering from a massive distributed denial-of-service attack (DDoS) .DDoS is a cyberattack in which an attacker overwhelms a website, server, or network resource by sending large amounts of malicious traffic, causing the target to fail to work or crash.

After waiting about 40 minutes, the conversation between the two finally began.

Musk began the Spaces show by saying, "This massive attack shows that many people are opposed to hearing from President Trump, but I'm honored to be having this conversation." Musk called the lengthy conversation aimed at "open-minded independent voters."

For his part, Trump said he's glad there are platforms like X where he can give long speeches.

What did both sides talk about？

During the two-hour conversation, the two sides discussed several topics related to U.S. politics. Here are a few of the main topics that were discussed:

● Illegal immigration

Illegal immigration has been one of Trump's most important campaign issues, and it just so happens that Musk has been quite vocal about immigration in the United States.

Last week, the worst race riots in decades erupted in the U.K. Musk has weighed in on the matter several times on X, blaming the riots on mass immigration and the effects of open borders, and even letting it slip that "civil war in the U.K. is inevitable."

The move then found heavy criticism from the British government. The British Prime Minister's Office said Musk's "civil war is inevitable" comments in response to the riots were unwarranted, and UK Justice Minister Heidi Alexander said Musk's behavior was "regrettable ". Prior to Musk's interview with Trump, EU digital enforcers also warned Musk not to amplify "harmful content."

Judging by his attitude toward the riots in the United Kingdom, Musk is more conservative on immigration, which fits well with Trump's campaign. Trump has vowed to "finish the border wall" and "stop the invasion".

In the conversation, Trump blamed Harris, the current vice president and his opponent in this year's election, for the border issue. Trump said that if he is elected, "we're going to have the largest deportation in the history of this country."

Musk echoed Trump's immigration policies. He argued that the U.S. needs to limit illegal immigration, and he recounted what he saw at the southern border, saying the people he saw "didn't look friendly."

Illegal immigration in the U.S. has become a growing problem over the past three years as a result of the Biden administration's lax approach to immigration. According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. law enforcement officers have had more than 10.5 million conflicts with illegal immigrants since January 2021, with more than 8 million of them entering illegally from the southern border. This figure represents a significant increase over the Trump administration, as well as the highest since any U.S. administration has been in power.

● Electric vehicles

During their conversation, Trump said Musk made a "great product."

Trump said, "You guys do make great products, I have to be honest, but that doesn't mean that everybody should have an electric car, but those are the little details, and you guys do have a great product."

Previously, Trump has been more opposed to electric cars. He has opposed a massive shift to electric cars out of concern for American autoworker jobs. He said electric cars themselves are "expensive" and "don't have enough range." At the Republican National Convention, Trump vowed to change President Biden's regulations to promote electric cars on his first day as president.

But since Musk endorsed Trump, Trump's stance on electric cars has changed. At a rally over the weekend, Trump said he had "no choice" but to change his approach to electric cars after Musk endorsed him for president. He told attendees, "I'm for electric cars, and I have to be because Elon is very supportive of me."

In fact, Trump has "helped" Musk and his electric car company Tesla before. 2020, Trump supported Musk's push to get Tesla back to work. Tesla is the only automaker in the U.S. without unionized workers, and during the shutdown caused by the New Crown epidemic, Trump agreed to restart the factory over the objections of regulators.

In addition to electric cars, Trump's tax cuts are also favorable to Tesla.

In late June, Trump said in an interview that he would further support lowering the corporate tax rate. If he is elected, the plan is to reduce the corporate tax rate from the current 21% to 15%.

In 2017, during Trump's presidency of the United States, a Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was passed that cut taxes across the board. The bill included a reduction in the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. This is the largest corporate tax cut bill in U.S. history, and is higher than the tax cuts passed in the 1980s by the Ronald Reagan administration, which lowered the tax rate from 46 percent to 34 percent.

These tax cuts are set to expire in 2025, and this tax cut is expected to be renewed if Trump is elected.

● Artificial Intelligence and Energy

During the conversation, both Musk and Trump were optimistic about the rate of development of artificial intelligence.

Trump's campaign platform mentioned plans to repeal President Biden's AI executive order requiring industry to report on the development of robust AI models.

Trump mentioned on air that he knows Musk is a big fan of AI, but the energy needs of AI are surprising. He said, "It blows my mind, but artificial intelligence requires twice as much energy as the United States currently produces."

Trump has been more inclined to support fossil energy, while Musk supports clean energy. But in this conversation, the two sides seem to have reached some sort of tacit understanding and did not make statements directly against each other.

Musk, who is the CEO of electric car maker Tesla, said, "I don't think we should denigrate the oil and gas industry," adding that the economy is dependent on such energy sources. But he also said he wants the U.S. to move to a "more sustainable economy" due to environmental pollution, saying "eventually it becomes uncomfortable to breathe."

The two sides also discussed clean energy, such as nuclear energy. Trump has repeatedly said that "nuclear warming" poses a greater threat than "global warming".

Musk, on the other hand, believes that nuclear energy is also an ideal form of clean energy. He argues that the safety of nuclear power is widely misunderstood, and says that nuclear accidents around the world are far less damaging than those in the mining industry. He said, "It's not as scary as people think." Trump finally seemed to acknowledge this and suggested that nuclear power should be renamed.

Trump also said he would support more federal incentives for coal and nuclear power generation to meet AI's huge demand for electricity.

● Inflation issues

During the conversation, Trump blamed current President Joe Biden for the inflation crisis in the U.S. and said that the crisis has left many Americans in dire straits.

At one point in mid-2022, the U.S. CPI reached 9.1 percent, coming in at its highest level in more than 40 years. Trump believes that inflation is actually worse than the officially announced value: "I think we're facing the worst inflation in 100 years. They say it's the worst inflation in 48 years. But I don't believe it."

"You know, four years ago, five years ago, people were saving money. Today, they're spending all their money, even borrowing money to make ends meet." According to Trump, "It's horrible what's happening right now."

Trump said that inflation has been costing people a lot of money and "we have to lower prices."

Musk isn't too happy about the current inflation situation either, and says excessive government regulation is another reason for continued inflation. He said, "If you deregulate, for example, by instituting sensible regulation, then a lot of that regulation is nonsense and leads to costs that are unjustifiably high."

● Musk wants to serve in the Trump administration

During the conversation, Musk also appeared to be hoping to secure a position for himself in the Trump administration.

Musk said he would be willing to play a role in Trump's new term to help cut federal spending and assist in the creation of a government deficit commission to ensure that taxpayer dollars are being spent effectively. "I would be happy to help set up such a commission, and I will be excited to see it come to fruition." Musk said as much. Trump has also said that he wants Musk to be involved.

Back in May, there were media reports that Trump had been considering giving Musk an advisory role in his administration if he were elected.

More than a million people online

Toward the end of the two-hour conversation, Musk doubled down on his support for Trump and called on moderate voters to support the Republican campaign. Musk said, "It's an exciting, inspiring future that people can look forward to and be optimistic and excited about what happens next."

According to statistics on X, more than a million people were simultaneously listening to the conversation online during the conversation between the two parties. By comparison, last year when Musk helped Ron DeSantis launch his presidential campaign on X Spaces, the number of online listeners peaked at about 300,000 people.

Still, today's count pales in comparison to other televised content about the U.S. election. More than 51 million people watched the June debate between Presidents Trump and Biden, according to Nielsen national TV ratings data. Last month, 28 million people watched Trump's speech at the Republican National Convention.