After months of anticipation and signaling, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is expected to finally enter the 2024 presidential race officially Wednesday evening. But he’s going to be doing it in a highly unusual way: through a public conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk.
The launch has no precedent. Executives at major social media companies have sponsored nonpartisan election hubs to encourage voter participation, and they’ve privately met politicians to talk policy. But this development goes a step further. It publicly ties Twitter to a specific politician with a distinct MAGA-influenced ideological vision. It underscores Twitter’s ongoing evolution into a right-wing platform, and it could boost DeSantis as he struggles to loosen former President Donald Trump’s stranglehold on the Republican presidential race.
Everyone in this interaction will be getting a taste of a kind of power they don’t normally have.
NBC reported that DeSantis will announce his intention to run in a conversation with Musk on Twitter Spaces, the site’s platform for audio chats. The conversation will be moderated by David Sacks, a venture capitalist who has a close relationship with Musk, pours money into right-wing activism, and is a staunch DeSantis ally. Musk too has expressed support for DeSantis in the past. Last year, when a Twitter user asked him whom he was leaning toward supporting in 2024, Musk replied “DeSantis.”
Everyone in this interaction will be getting a taste of a kind of power they don’t normally have. Musk and, to a lesser extent, Sacks are tech titans who wield power through money, and increasingly in American culture through their purchase of media properties. (Musk, of course, used his tech wealth to purchase Twitter; Sacks co-founded the independent media platform Callin, recently acquired by Rumble). With this conversation, though, they’re trying to play political kingmakers.
Musk has insisted that the conversation is not an endorsement. But this…
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