“For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral,” Twitter owner Elon Musk tweeted a little over a year ago, shortly after announcing his acquisition of the platform.
Fast forward to today. Musk now officially owns Twitter, replies pretty much exclusively to right-wing influencers, promotes far-right conspiracy theories, and is now getting involved in the Republican presidential primary races.
On Tuesday, NBC News reported that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis was planning to officially announce his candidacy for President of the United States in a Twitter Space, the service’s audio chat platform, on Wednesday evening. Not only that, but Twitter owner Elon Musk himself would join DeSantis in the Twitter Space to take part in the campaign launch.
Musk confirmed his participation in DeSantis’ presidential campaign launch with a retweet of Fox News’ Bill Melugin.
“BREAKING: @FoxNews confirms Florida Governor @RonDeSantis will announce his 2024 Presidential run tomorrow night, 6pm ET in a Twitter Spaces interview with @elonmusk,” read Melugin’s tweet which Musk shared to his more than 140 million followers.
Musk has previously shared his support for DeSantis on Twitter. In a June 2022 tweet, for example, Musk replied to a conversation involving his recent vote for a Republican Congressional candidate. He was asked who he’d support for president in 2024.
“DeSantis,” Musk replied.
In a tweet the following month, Musk reiterated his support for DeSantis by sharing that Trump was too old to be president again and that DeSantis would “easily win” against Biden.
Further solidifying just how this conversation between Musk and DeSantis will go is the announced moderator, David Sacks. Sacks is a tech VC who has previously shared his support for DeSantis and even hosted a fundraiser for the governor. Sacks is also a close confidant of Musk who aided in the transition following Musk’s takeover of Twitter.
DeSantis enters a primary race that so far features Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, former Governor of South Carolina Nikki Haley, and of course former president Donald Trump.
Trump has been feuding with DeSantis for months now, awaiting the latter’s much-rumored entrance into the race. And while Trump has yet to comment on Musk’s participation in the campaign launch, the former president has also feuded online with Musk before. It’s only a matter of time before Trump takes aim at Musk again.
