2

Elon Musk Is Going to Try to Make Ron DeSantis Cool

 1 year ago
source link: https://gizmodo.com/ron-desantis-elon-musk-florida-2024-twitter-spaces-1850466721
Go to the source link to view the article. You can view the picture content, updated content and better typesetting reading experience. If the link is broken, please click the button below to view the snapshot at that time.

Elon Musk Is Going to Try to Make Ron DeSantis Cool

The Florida Governor is reportedly set to officially announce his 2024 presidential run on Twitter Wednesday night alongside the platform's soon to be ex-CEO.

A photo of Elon Musk in red armor next to a photo of Ron Desantis
Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis have been rather congratulatory toward each other since Musk bought Twitter last year.Photo: Noam Galai / Joe Raedle (Getty Images)

Florida governor Ron DeSantis, that guy who’s definitely not running for president, plans to announce he’s running for president alongside Twitter Elon Musk, the guy who’s definitely not a proponent of right wing politics.

That’s according to a Tuesday report from NBC News where, according to three unnamed sources, DeSantis plans to sit down on Donald Trump’s former favorite pastime and announce to the world that he’s planning to run for the Republican nomination. According to the report, it will take place Wednesday at 6 p.m. ET on a Musk-hosted Twitter Spaces. That talk will be moderated by a close friend of both parties, David Sacks.

Advertisement

Musk retweeted a Fox reporter who mentioned the news, giving a small bit of credence to the report. Musk is an open supporter of DeSantis, having previously claimed he would vote for the Florida governor in a tweet last year. DeSantis has also tried to have Musk’s back on several occasions, having attacked Twitter’s former board during that period when Musk was trying to take over the platform in his hostile takeover bid. DeSantis also criticized Apple over its advertising practices on Twitter.

Sacks himself is a big tech entrepreneur and another far right big tech mogul in the same vein as Peter Thiel (the pair actually wrote a book together that Thiel later disavowed). He has hovered close to Musk over the past few months since the billionaire bought the platform.

Advertisement
Advertisement

Musk is both owner and the de facto PR head and face of the platform. If NBC’s report is true, Musk plans to take both his 140 million followers on Twitter and the entire blue bird app and put DeSantis’ planned bid for the GOP nomination front and center. According to NBC, this announcement will be followed by a massive fundraising drive for the candidate in Miami.

It’s a right wing buddy cop show for the ages, and Musk has been planning this for several weeks, according to the unnamed sources. Under DeSantis’ reign, Florida has become a lightning rod for far right politics in the post-Trump era, especially with the governor’s actions toward trans people and the LGBTQ community. So far in the months before he’s announced his presidency, DeSantis promoted his anti-immigrant stance by shipping asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard. He’s picked a fight with Disney over the company’s stance on LGBTQ rights. He’s also gone hard against invisible enemies like people who want to ban gas stoves and has performed the usual conservative tactic of attacking tech giants.

Advertisement

This article is part of a developing story. Our writers and editors will be updating this page as new information is released. Please check back again in a few minutes to see the latest updates. Meanwhile, if you want more news coverage, check out our tech, science, or io9 front pages. And you can always see the most recent Gizmodo news stories at gizmodo.com/latest.


About Joyk


Aggregate valuable and interesting links.
Joyk means Joy of geeK