Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at a conference titled Celebrating the Faces of Israel, Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, April 27, 2023.
Maya Allerozzo | AFP | Getty Images
Plans to announce the campaign for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis were derailed Wednesday night by massive technical glitches on Twitter that temporarily prevented him from announcing his candidacy.
“The servers are getting a little nervous,” Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, was heard saying on the app’s live audio feed as he and DeSantis were supposed to have a conversation that included the governor’s first oral announcement of his White House offer.
Musk’s comment came between crashes, feedback glitches, and audio failures that prevented conversations from starting on Twitter’s Spaces feature for about 25 minutes after the 6pm ET start time.
Musk and investor David Sachs, an ally of the two men, launched a new online broadcast on Twitter Spaces after the original failed. But technical problems have cropped up in this stream as well, including amid DeSantis’ remarks.
DeSantis had filed federal papers earlier in the day, officially placing him in the running for the Republican presidency. His campaign also released a video in which DeSantis says, “I’m running for president to lead our great American comeback.”
But DeSantis’ unorthodox decision to make a major announcement about the Twitter audio-only tool attracted the most attention.
The aborted first Spaces event scored over half a million listeners before it was completely abandoned.
When he was finally able to speak without a break, DeSantis began echoing some remarks he had made in pre-recorded video released by his campaign shortly before.
Well, I’m running for President of the United States to lead our great American comeback,” DeSantis said on Twitter. He touched on issues including crime and economic anxiety and criticized President Joe Biden for lacking “energy” and taking “signals from the wake mob.”
The failed event came as Musk is pushing to increase Twitter revenue. Earlier this month, he hired former NBCUniversal advertising director Linda Yaccarino to replace him as CEO of the social media platform. Musk bought Twitter in October for $44 billion. Since then, he has cut about 80% of the company’s employees.
after the accident, Musk tweeted: “All presidential candidates are very welcome on this platform.”
DeSantis’ campaign official attempted to turn the sporadic event into a positive one, telling NBC News, “Governor DeSantis has hacked the internet – he should tell you everything you need to know about the strength of his candidacy…!”
But critics of DeSantis and his chief political opponents pounced on the glitch-fest.
“His collar is too big!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his Twitter-like social platform.
Meanwhile, Biden’s official Twitter account took the opportunity to request contributions to his re-election campaign.
“This link works,” Biden tweeted with a URL linking to his ActBlue donation page.
