POLITICS
Why is Ron DeSantis announcing his presidential bid on Twitter? Elon Musk affirms his support
The Republican will be running against Donald Trump but has a mountain to climb to overcome the former president in polling.
Florida governor Ron DeSantis is to launch his 2024 presidential campaign on Wednesday with the support of Elon Musk. On Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. ET, DeSantis will join Musk on Twitter spaces to launch his long-expected run for president.
It is a big turnaround for a platform that once drew the ire of conservatives for its perceived liberal outlook.
In a Twitter thread back in 2022, Musk was asked whether he would support a Ron DeSantis presidential bid in 2024.
The tweets were made during a thread in which Musk explained the reasoning behind the reinstatement of Donald Trump’s instagram account. Trump has yet to return to the platform.
“Deplatforming a sitting President undermined public trust in Twitter for half of America,” Musk wrote.
Musk supporting the GOP shouldn’t be a surprise based upon his recent political outbursts. Before the midterm elections he told his fans to back the Republican party though as recently as May last year Musk had said he had “voted overwhelmingly for Democrats, historically. Like I’m not sure, I might never have voted for a Republican.”
DeSantis has been regularly polling behind former president Donald Trump.
The changing face of Twitter
Conservatives had long lambasted the perceived liberal bias of the social media site before Musk’s purchase, despite the algorithm promoting tight-wing politicans. Research conducted in 2019 put just 14% of users in the conservative category.
That DeSantis, himself no friend of liberals nor socialists, will be using the platform to launch his run for president speaks volumes in how the site’s perception has changed in the last year.
Maxwell Frost, a Democratic congressman from Florida, greeted news of DeSantis’s plans with derision, tweeting: “On a Twitter space? [Laugh my ass off] this is so lame.”