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Failure to Launch – Elon Musk’s Twitter Spaces Fails for Ron DeSantis

May 25, 2023 ,

Despite previously having no issues with 3.3 million listeners for a Twitter Spaces event with BBC, it only took a few hundred thousand listeners for the collaboration between Ron DeSantis and Elon Musk to end in abject failure.

The goal was for DeSantis to use the edgy and cool Twitter Spaces tech to launch his campaign. The outcome was an embarrassing display of a billionaire funded national campaign trying too hard to launch a candidacy built on transparent fraud and political pretense.  The memes coming from the disastrous event are hilarious, and very fitting.

Fox News – Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ presidential campaign announcement was mired by repeated technical glitches on Twitter Wednesday evening, in a black eye for the social media platform.

The highly-anticipated announcement, set to be made via a conversation with Twitter CEO Elon Musk and tech entrepreneur David Sacks on Twitter’s “Spaces” feature, was delayed as it appeared the platform was overwhelmed. Twitter’s mobile app repeatedly crashed and users complained that they were unable to hear the broadcast.

Nearly 700,000 users logged in to hear the announcement roughly 20 minutes after it was launched. The event was then abruptly shut down without explanation.  […] Twitter users pummeled Musk over the botched rollout, and Democrats were quick to capitalize. (read more)

WASHINGTON DC – […]  The spectacle represented a major embarrassment for both DeSantis and Elon Musk, Twitter’s relatively new owner, one that could haunt the former as he embarks on a bid to win the GOP’s nomination and the latter as he tries to position himself as a political kingmaker in the new media landscape.

DeSantis was slated to do additional interviews on more traditional mediums Wednesday night, where he will likely face questions about his launch on Twitter.

Musk has used Twitter Spaces before as a way to directly reach his 140 million followers and avoid going through outside media. However, his Twitter Spaces — which have drawn tens of thousands of listeners in the past — have been known to shut down suddenly due to technical glitches. Ever since Musk bought Twitter last October, he’s laid off nearly two-thirds of the employees, including large swaths of engineering staff, leading to shutdowns and regular technical problems on the platform.

Wednesday’s Twitter Spaces marks the first time the audio-only feature on the platform has been used for a presidential launch. Spaces first publicly launched in May 2021 and mimicked the audio-only app ClubHouse that launched in April 2020, but has faced a shrinking user base in recent years.

Sacks called the event “the biggest room that’s probably ever been assembled online.” The number of viewers fluctuated throughout the conversation, hitting at least 682,000 at one point, but holding mostly between 200,000 and 300,000 later on. (read more)


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