WASHINGTON, Aug 12 (Reuters) - Billionaire entrepreneur

Elon Musk is due to interview Republican presidential candidate

Donald Trump on the X social media network on Monday in an event

that could inject more surprises into the turbulent U.S.

presidential election.

The interview, scheduled for 8 p.m. Eastern Time (0000

Tuesday GMT), could provide the former president an opportunity

to seize the limelight at a time when his campaign is seen as

sagging.

His Democratic rival for the Nov. 5 election, Vice President

Kamala Harris, has erased Trump's lead in opinion polls and

energized Democratic voters with a series of high-energy

rallies.

The interview on Musk's social media platform could allow

Trump to reach a different audience than the conservative

faithful who attend his rallies and watch his interviews on Fox

News. However, similar events on the platform have been plagued

by technical problems.

"Am going to do some system scaling tests tonight & tomorrow

in advance of the conversation," Musk wrote on the platform,

formerly known as Twitter.

The interview will be hosted live using Trump's official X

account, his campaign said on Sunday. Trump's access to his

account, @realDonaldTrump, was restored a month into Musk's

ownership of X after being suspended by the platform's previous

owners following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on Congress by his

supporters.

Trump frequently posts on his Truth Social social media

platform, which was launched in February 2022. He has returned

to X only once since his access was restored with a post in

August 2023 appealing for donations and showing his Fulton

County jail mug shot.

Musk could prove to be an unusual interviewer. The world's

richest person backed Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020 but

has tacked rightward since and endorsed the Republican following

the attempted assassination of Trump in July.

Musk, who heads electric car company Tesla Inc ( TSLA ),

also started a fundraising organization to support Trump's

campaign. The political action committee is now under

investigation in Michigan for possible violations of state laws

on gathering voter information.

Trump, a longstanding critic of electric vehicles, shifted

gears after Musk's endorsement.

"I'm for electric cars. I have to be, because Elon endorsed

me very strongly. So I have no choice," Trump said at an early

August rally.

United Auto Workers President Shawn Fein, campaigning in

support of Harris, called Trump a "sellout."

The Biden administration has worked to popularize electric

vehicles through tax breaks and other support as part of its

broader goal of reducing carbon emissions blamed for climate

change.

Republicans in Congress have opposed those subsidies.

Senator J.D. Vance, Trump's vice presidential running mate, said

the Biden policy merely subsidizes rich people who purchase the

cars.

Advertisers have fled X since Musk bought it in 2022 and

subsequently reduced content moderation that has resulted in a

dramatic increase in hate speech, civil rights groups have said.

In the meantime, the entrepreneur has been involved in a

swirl of additional controversies. He has falsely accused Biden

and the Democratic Party of opening U.S. borders to undocumented

immigrants in a ploy to boost the number of potential Democratic

voters. Non-citizens are not allowed to vote in federal

elections.

Musk in November 2023 endorsed an antisemitic post on X that

said members of the Jewish community were stoking hatred against

white people. He defended himself, saying the user was speaking

"the actual truth." Musk has also attacked the Anti-Defamation

League, a nonprofit that works to fight antisemitism, accusing

it, without evidence, of being responsible for a drop in

advertising on X.