Florida Governor Ron DeSantis speaks at a conference titled Have a good time the Faces of Israel, Museum of Tolerance Jerusalem, April 27, 2023.
Maya Alleruzzo | AFP | Getty Images
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign announcement plans were derailed Wednesday evening by massive technical glitches on Twitter that kept him from declaring his candidacy.
“Servers are straining somewhat,” Elon Musk, Twitter’s owner, was heard saying on the app’s live audio stream where he and DeSantis were presupposed to have a conversation that included the governor’s first verbal announcement of his White House bid.
Musk’s comment got here in between crashes, feedback glitches and audio failures that prevented the conversation on Twitter’s Spaces feature from starting for around 25 minutes past its scheduled 6 p.m. ET start time.
Musk and investor David Sacks, an ally of each men, began a recent Twitter Spaces webcast after the unique one failed. But technical issues popped in that stream, too, including in the midst of DeSantis’ remarks.
DeSantis had filed federal paperwork earlier within the day, putting him officially within the running for the Republican presidential nomination. His campaign had also released a video wherein DeSantis says, “I’m running for President to steer our great American comeback.”
But DeSantis’ unorthodox decision to make a significant announcement on an audio-only Twitter tool had drawn essentially the most attention.
The aborted first Spaces event listed greater than half one million listeners before it was abandoned completely.
The botched event got here as Musk pushes to spice up Twitter’s revenue. Earlier this month, he hired NBCUniversal’s former ad chief Linda Yaccarino to exchange him because the social media platform’s CEO.
A DeSantis campaign official tried to spin the sputtering event right into a positive, telling NBC News, “Governor DeSantis broke the web — that ought to inform you all the things it is advisable to know concerning the strength of his candidacy….!”
But DeSantis’ critics and his top political opponents pounced on the glitch fest.
“His collar is simply too big!” Trump wrote on Truth Social, his own Twitter-like social platform.
President Joe Biden’s official Twitter account, meanwhile, used the chance to ask for contributions to his reelection campaign.
“This link works,” Biden tweeted with a URL linking to his ActBlue donation page.
