Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said the large volume of listeners caused technical issues during his Twitter Spaces conversation with Elon Musk to kick off his candidacy for president.
DeSantis told Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman from South Carolina, in an interview on Fox News that the conversation had a “huge audience,” which caused the audio issues.
“We had a huge audience. It was the biggest they’d ever had. It did break the Twitter Space, and so, we’re really excited with the enthusiasm,” he said.
DeSantis ended months of speculation about whether he would mount a bid for the presidency with an announcement that he was joining the race for the GOP nomination Wednesday, posting a video on his Twitter account and having a conversation with Musk about his candidacy.
But the discussion experienced repeated tech problems and instances of the audio cutting out as hundreds of thousands of Twitter users tuned in to listen.
Fox News itself swiped at DeSantis and Musk before DeSantis’s interview, with the banner headline on the outlet’s website saying, “Amateur hour,” and, “Much hyped Ron DeSantis presidential announcement a disaster on Twitter.”
More on DeSantis’s launch from The Hill
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- Trump blasts DeSantis campaign launch: ‘catastrophe,’ ‘DISASTER’
- DeSantis’s 2024 rivals pile on over tech issues with campaign launch
Some of DeSantis’s rivals for the Republican nomination poked fun at the issues that remained present during the conversation.
Karoline Leavitt — a spokesperson for Make America Great Again Inc., a super PAC aligned with former President Trump — said the “botched campaign announcement is another example of why” DeSantis is not ready for the job.
“The stakes are too high, and the fight to save America is too critical to gamble on a first-timer who is clearly not ready for prime time,” she added. “President Trump is the proven leader that will be ready on day one to turn the country around.”
Former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) used the glitches as an opportunity to raise funds for his own campaign, tweeting “Just like my policies, this link works.”
President Biden also weighed in on the difficulties, tweeting “This link works,” along with a link to a page to donate to his campaign.
“If you make a donation, maybe we can break that part of the internet as well,” DeSantis said in the interview.