The owner of Twitter Elon Musk wants to turn his platform into social media failed miserably on Wednesday after negotiations with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Twitter The venue to announce his presidential bid was plagued by embarrassing technical difficulties.
Before that, Musk hyped up DeSantis’s choice of venues is surprising, he says: “Anyone who advertises on the platform is going to get as large an audience as possible. It’s smart.” However, the tech billionaire was quick to eat his words as the Spaces chat began several hours into Musk’s listening room with more than 600,000 listeners.
Difficulties soon began David Sacksa a prominent Republican is a friend of both Musk and DeSantis were event management, began to speak. After Sacks explained Musk and praised DeSantis, Space was he was caught by a very loud voice before cutting. Then it came back and cut again and again.
“We have so many people here that we’re melting the servers, which is a good sign,” Sacks said. In the background, Musk was heard to say that he is working on distributing more server power, according to Guardian.
Apparently that didn’t help. Over the next 20 minutes, Sacks and DeSantis both walked in and out of Space and appeared to be trying to talk, The Verge said. The students received the message that Space was over, although DeSantis had no chance to say anything, much less that he wanted to be president.
Masaka had to start another Space with his account, finding a moment to praise Musk even in the midst of disaster. The new station had a much smaller audience than before, but reached over 100,000.
“I think so [Twitter] it’s messed up because when you multiply half a million people in one room with an account with 100 million followers, which is Elon’s account, I think that just creates an unprecedented amount,” Sacks said. “But with my small following it seems to be going really well.”
Finally, about half an hour late, Space turned its attention to what was supposed to be the most important man of the night: DeSantis. Masaka asked the governor of Florida if he has a proclamation to issue.
“I’m running for the President of the United States to lead us back to America,” DeSantis said. “There is no substitute for success … we must look forward, not back.”
Unfortunately, it’s hard to call DeSantis’ announcement a success. Twitter users quickly called the incident a “#Dangerous,” that was happening on the platform Thursday morning. Plus, the biggest story of the night wasn’t DeSantis running for president, but Musk’s embarrassing disaster.
“[T]his was a fantasy, clear and simple, not as a fantasy — which was embarrassing for a self-styled tech god — but as a TV event,” tech reporter Kara Swisher. tweeted after that. “What did DeSantis say? Who knows since what he said – or didn’t say – sucked all the air.”
Don’t tell Musk that, though. In response to criticism from outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and Politico, the Twitter owner said the event gave DeSantis’ announcement “a lot of attention.”
“Top story in the world today,” Musk said on Twitter.
He then he added that “the new Twitter account registration was successful.”
Meanwhile, The new CEO of Twitter, Linda Yaccarinohe also hailed the event as a success, which seems to be the only thing you can do when you’re in Musk’s style.
“Tonight’s reflection – we just heard a rare and off-the-record conversation, on many important topics, with a candidate for President – all set on Twitter. That’s history. Let’s do more,” Yaccarino said. “Freedom of speech is precious.”
Gizmodo contacted the DeSantis presidential campaign for comment Thursday morning but did not immediately respond.