THE WASHINGTON POST – Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will announce his 2024 presidential run Wednesday evening on Twitter in a conversation with the social media platform’s billionaire CEO, Elon Musk, according to a spokesman for DeSantis.
The Republican will declare his intentions on a public audio chat called a “Twitter Space,” two other people familiar with the planning of the virtual appearance said. Musk has met privately with DeSantis and praised him publicly in the fall, saying he would back the governor if he ran for the president, but he has yet to endorse a candidate and recently praised Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, another contender for the GOP nomination.
Musk, who acquired Twitter for USD44 billion last year and is among the world’s richest people, once said he “reluctantly” backed Joe Biden over Donald Trump in 2020. But he’s become an influential figure in GOP politics and urged his followers on social media last year to support Republicans. He has echoed DeSantis’s criticisms of “wokeness,” or leftist politics run amok, and of US officials’ approach to the coronavirus pandemic.
A polarising figure with about 140 million followers on Twitter, Musk has also endeared himself to the political right with his move last year to reinstate former president Donald Trump’s account; Twitter suspended the former president in 2021 after a pro-Trump mob stormed the US Capitol over his false claims the 2020 election was stolen. Right-wing influencers revelled in Musk’s Twitter takeover last year, and Tucker Carlson, the recently fired Fox News host, has announced plans to relaunch his show on Twitter.
Twitter and Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Musk retweeted a Fox News report about the planned announcement. A spokesman for DeSantis, Bryan Griffin, confirmed that DeSantis will announce during a conversation with Musk on Twitter and that the governor will appear later Wednesday evening on “Fox News Tonight” with Trey Gowdy.
The people familiar with the planning spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe plans that had not been announced publicly. NBC News first reported the plans for the joint event.
The Twitter discussion will be moderated by David Sacks, an investor and former PayPal executive who attended a DeSantis donor retreat in Palm Beach, Florida, earlier this year and said at the time that he hoped DeSantis would run for president.
DeSantis is announcing his long-expected campaign as donors gather at a Four Seasons hotel in Miami to hear from the governor’s team and to kick off fundraising. Some of DeSantis’s rivals were quick to ridicule his unusual launch plans on Tuesday.
“This is one of the most out-of-touch campaign launches in modern history,” Karoline Leavitt, a spokeswoman for the pro-Trump super PAC MAGA Inc, said in a statement. “The only thing less relatable than a niche campaign launch on Twitter is DeSantis’ after party at the uber elite Four Seasons resort in Miami.”
Ammar Moussa, a spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, called the Twitter Spaces plan “curious, even for the world’s most online candidate.”
At the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit, Musk addressed the upcoming conversation with DeSantis. He did not go into specifics on whom he would want to serve as president.
In general, he said he would like a president who espouses “the moderate views that I think most of the country holds.”
“I would really just like someone fairly normal and sensible to be president – that would be great.”
Musk criticised the political primary format that tends to push candidates to extremes. Asked to assess the supposed normalcy of four candidates for president, Musk declined.
The tech CEO has previously argued that DeSantis could “easily” beat Biden in 2024 – echoing the arguments of DeSantis and his allies about his electability. DeSantis has been telling donors that he has a better shot than Trump to win the swing states that will decide the general election, according to people who have spoken with him.
