Trump’s rival announces his candidacy on Twitter in a chat with Elon Musk replete with glitches
Florida Gov, Ron DeSantiswas scheduled to announce this Wednesday afternoon -early in the morning in Spain- his candidacy as leader of the Republican Party for the 2024 U.S. presidential election.
Up to that point it would have all been ‘just another day at the office’ in the U.S. political landscape, but, as usual of late, things got complicated when Elon Musk showed up in the middle.
What does the billionaire have to do with all this? Well, DeSantis made the public announcement of his candidacy in front of former President Donald Trump via a conversation with Musk on Twitter Spaces. And the fiasco was such that the hashtag ‘DeSaster’ went viral.
The controversy of DeSantis’ announcement on Twitter Spaces stems from several factors. First, the Florida politician chose as a place to launch his campaign. a platform that most Americans do not use.. The social network service is unknown even to the most active users.
The second reason for the debacle is due to the. technical problems that affected the event.. During DeSantis’ announcement on Twitter Spaces, audio glitches and cuts in the broadcast were recorded. The sound was cut off and distorted, and at times only reverberation noises were heard along with some distorted speech.
Moderator David Sacks, a Republican donor and friend of Musk, tried to justify the chaos by saying they had “so many people” connected That they were “melting down the servers.”. In fact, he was very optimistic about the outcome:
@GovRonDeSantis announced he’s running for president on Twitter. This was by far the biggest room ever held on social media. Twitter performed great after some initial scaling challenges. Thanks Twitter Team for adapting so quickly to make history!https://t.co/mTJ2INQ1Y7
– David Sacks (@DavidSacks) May 24, 2023
Some sources claim that the talk was followed by more than 6.5 million people.. During his hour-long conversation with Musk and Sacks, the presidential hopeful deployed many of the tenets in favor of freedom and against “ideological indoctrination” progressive, premises to which he had already appealed during the campaign for his reelection as governor.
On the decision to announce his candidacy on Twitter, something unheard of in the history of U.S. political campaigns, DeSantis highlighted the social network’s stance on freedoms..
“Twitter sure was expensive, but freedom of speech is priceless,” responded billionaire Musk.
Reactions were not long in coming
The unfortunate choice of platform for the announcement and, above all, the technical problems experienced by the politician during the announcement have ended up by overshadow the launch of his candidacy.. And, of course, his rivals have not been slow to respond.
The current U.S. president, Joe Biden, has reacted to the failed launch of DeSantis’ candidacy by posting on his Twitter profile. a web page for donations to his re-election. and that of his ‘number two’, Kamala Harris, with a message that read. “This link works.”.
For their part, Trump’s sons, both Eric Trump and Donald Trump Jr, joined the aforementioned ‘DeSaster’ hashtag. And Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for ‘Make America Great Again,’ has commented that “Ron DeSantis’ failed campaign ad is. another example of why he’s simply not ready for this job.“.
Other politicians also saw the opportunistic side, such as former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, who. seized the moment to raise funds for his candidacy.: “Like my policies, this link works,” he claimed in a post accompanied by a link to a donation page for your campaign.
As expected, Trump similarly ridiculed the failures of the launchWow, DeSanctus’ launch on TWITTER is a DISASTER! His whole campaign will be a disaster. LOOK!”, he said on TruthSocial, his networking platform.
Hours later he ‘congratulated’ his opponent on the formalization of the candidacy, writing in the following, “Hopefully, will get the full experience of being attacked by Marxists, Communists and radical left-wing country lunatics,” without whom, he says, he will never know the kind of work he is doing.
Musk won’t say who he’ll vote for, but….
Although the tycoon for the moment is keeping this decision private, yesterday a user asked him on Twitter. whether he would vote for a candidate who would not/cannot participate in Spaces. and he would answer straight out no.
Likewise, shortly thereafter he tweeted that “all presidential candidates are welcome on this platform.”
Sign up for our newsletter and receive in your e-mail the latest news about technology.
