Donald Trump appeared to speak with a new lisp during his interview with Elon Musk on X on Monday.

It is not clear whether Trump has developed a quirk in speech or whether it was as a result of the technical glitches suffered by the social media platform during the interview.

The one-on-one interview, which has attracted more than one billion views on X since its release, was delayed for nearly 40 minutes due to technical difficulties.

Once it did get under way, Trump attacked Kamala Harris, before comparing her to his wife, Melania – all the while appearing to slur his words slightly and stumbling over the letter “s”.

He appeared to pronounce “th” in a manner which unkind X users compared to Sylvester the Cat, the Looney Tunes cartoon character who spoke with a distinctive lisp.

Discussing Ms Harris’s appearance on a Time magazine cover, Trump told Mr Musk: “She looks like the most beautiful actress ever to live. It was a drawing, and actually, she looked very much like a great first lady, Melania.”

A number of listeners were quick to highlight Trump’s altered speech, including Chris Cillizza, a former CNN journalist, who wrote on X: “Trump’s lisp is super pronounced.”

He added: “Probably the only thing he will care about when he reads coverage of this interview.”

Another user wrote: “This is incredible… Elon is just saying ‘yeah, yeah’ while Trump steamrolls him sounding like Sylvester the Cat.”

One post superimposed the face of boxing legend Mike Tyson, who speaks with a lisp, onto Trump’s head.

But another journalist, Michael Tracey, highlighted how he had suffered similar audio problems when using spaces on X in the past.

He wrote on X: “Trump isn’t slurring his words, I’ve also had that weird thing happen on Spaces where it sounds like I have a comically outrageous lisp.”

The Trump campaign has since hit back at the claims, with a spokesperson responding to a query from the Huffington Post by saying: “Must be your s----y hearing. Get your ears checked.”

Trump left X, formerly Twitter, in January 2021, following the insurrection at the US Capitol.

The former president returned briefly in 2023 to share a picture of his historic mugshot – after he was arrested in Georgia on charges of plotting to overturn the state’s 2020 election results.

But, coinciding with the Musk interview, he posted 11 times in the last 24 hours.

It is unclear whether he will remain on Mr Musk’s platform, which is a competitor to his own Truth social platform, or if he returned solely for the purpose of the interview.