Elon Musk Makes Characteristically Wild Debut on a Buzzy Social App Clubhouse

Elon Musk’s debut on a new social-conversation app was a wild ride, with talk ranging from wiring a monkey’s brain for video gaming to the entrepreneur’s grilling of Robinhood’s chief executive, all while many users were unable to join because of the surge in demand to hear the world’s richest man speak.

Many who tried tuning into Clubhouse, the app backed by venture firm Andreessen Horowitz, ended up on pirated streams that popped up on YouTube and aired the chief executive of Tesla Inc. taking questions from moderators for more than an hour. The invitation-only platform founded last year is one of the hotter commodities in social media and has the potential to become a can’t-miss information platform for journalists, investors and the public, much like Twitter Inc. -- a service beloved by Musk.