Trump got a huge laugh out of Elon when he said ... "Illegal immigration saved my life."

The former president was talking about how a chart on illegal immigration led to him turning his head ever so slightly at his July 13 rally in Butler, PA ... moving his head just enough to avoid being hit squarely by a bullet when Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire.

Elon chuckled at Trump's remark ... and Trump repeatedly said it was a miracle and an act of God that he moved just in the nick of time so the bullet grazed his ear. Trump says he would have been speaking to Elon from a different realm if not for illegal immigration.

Elon and Trump are having a conversation right now on Spaces ... getting off to a late start after a series of glitches that Musk blamed on a cyberattack ... and Elon's singing the praises of legal immigration and Trump's mostly agreeing and bashing illegal aliens.

On the assassination attempt, Elon kept trying to bait Trump into bashing the Secret Service ... with Musk saying it was unbelievable the rooftop wasn't secured ... but Trump wouldn't bite. Instead, Trump praised USSS agents and the sniper who took out Crooks ... and Elon said the image of Trump pumping his fist was what America was all about.

Trump also said he's going back to Butler for a campaign rally sometime in October. He announced his return back to Butler last month, but didn't give an indication when it would be until his interview with Elon.

The live audio interview was supposed to start at 8 PM ET sharp, but folks had trouble getting into the conversation and at 8:18 PM Elon blamed the issues on a "massive" denial of service attack.

A few minutes later, Elon claimed X tested their system with 8 million concurrent listeners earlier in the day -- apparently without issue -- and by 8:27 PM ET he was saying he would interview Trump in a smaller space and "post the unedited audio immediately thereafter."

Elon chalked it all up to what he feels is great opposition and resistance to Trump.

Leading up to Monday night's interview, Trump posted a flurry of tweets on X ... the first time he's done so since August 2023, when he posted the mug shot from his Georgia arrest.

Trump was banned from the platform after the Jan. 6 Capitol riots in 2021, when X was known as Twitter. Back then, the Bird app determined Trump's posts spurred violence ... and his account was shuttered.

When Elon bought Twitter in 2022, he reinstated Trump's account ... though Trump did not post again until the 2023 mug shot drop ... instead mostly confining his social media footprint to his own platform, Truth Social.

But, with Elon inviting Trump to have a live conversation, Trump's account got super active Monday ... posting campaign ads and attacks on his opponent, Kamala Harris.