Twitter “will continue to experiment” with its listening platform Spaces to give political candidates a chance to connect with audiences, despite technical difficulties at a high-profile event, said David Sacks, who moderated the conversation between Elon Musk and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis on Wednesday.
Sacks, a partner at venture capital firm Craft Ventures, admitted that the negotiations got off to a rough start, but said they went smoothly after he switched from Musk’s account to his own. “If your viewers go on Twitter now and listen to the tapes, I think they’re going to wonder what all the fuss was about,” he said on Bloomberg TV on Thursday. “Once we started in my account room, we worked well,”
The Twitter Spaces event was to kick off DeSantis’ 2024 presidential campaign. More than 500,000 people waited more than 20 minutes for the event to begin, and people trying to enter were often turned away. DeSantis and Musk joked that they broke the Internet.
The failure was widely ridiculed online and Sacks failed to challenge DeSantis on major issues such as his fight with Walt. Disney Co., or the barriers that schools teach about race or sex, and the idea of only allowing assistants to ask questions. Sacks defended the discussion, saying that it went well after the initial failure and that the hour-long discussion was not enough to cover every issue.
“We tried to ask him about the tough questions,” Sacks said.
Sacks criticized the term limit for not being able to bring forward DeSantis’ controversial views on abortion. “I think it’s an important issue and they need to talk about it,” Sacks said. “We could not publish any magazine in this town hall. We talked about a lot of things, and we just felt like we were scratching the surface. I think there will be another opportunity for the candidate to explain this. “
Sacks said, “Twitter really wants to be an open platform, a town hall for those who want to use it.”