David Sachs, who moderated a discussion between Elon Musk and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, said Twitter will “continue to experiment” with its Spaces audio platform to give political candidates a chance to connect with the public, despite technical glitches at a high-profile event. Wednesday.
Sachs, general partner at venture capital firm Craft Ventures, acknowledged the conversation got off to a rocky start, but said it went well after they switched from Musk’s account to his own. “If your viewers go to Twitter right now and go listen to the recording, I think they’re going to wonder what all the fuss is about,” he said on Bloomberg Television on Thursday. “Once we started working on a room on my account, it worked out perfectly,” he said.
The Twitter Spaces event was intended to launch DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign. More than 500,000 people were waiting more than 20 minutes for the event to start, and people trying to join were often kicked out. DeSantis and Musk have joked that they broke the internet.
The flaw was widely derided online and Sachs’ failure to challenge DeSantis on key points such as his fight with The Walt Disney Company, restrictions on what schools teach about race or sexuality, as well as the decision to only let supporters of the candidate ask questions. Sachs defended the discussion, saying that it went well after the initial fiasco and that the one-hour conversation was not enough to cover every issue.
“We tried to ask him some tough questions,” Sachs said.
Sachs blamed the time limit for not being able to bring up DeSantis’ controversial views on abortion. “I think it’s an important issue and he’s going to have to talk about it,” Sachs said. “We haven’t been able to cover every issue in this town hall. We’ve covered so many issues, and we still feel like we’re just scratching the surface. I think there will be other opportunities for the candidate to deal with that.”
Sachs said, “Twitter desperately wants to become an open platform, a town hall for candidates to use.”
