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Ron DeSantis, 44, is already on the receiving end of mocking tweets after his official presidential campaign announcement had technological troubles. The Florida governor had planned to launch his Republican nomination for the 2024 election live on former Twitter CEO Elon Musk‘s Twitter Spaces page at 6 p.m. ET on Wednesday, but the site kept crashing, leading to a delay of almost a half an hour. When everything was in working order again, he proceeded to go forward with his plans in the audio chat.
“Well, I’m running for president to lead our Great American Comeback,” DeSantis said in the chat. “We know our country is going in the wrong direction… American decline is not inevitable, it is a choice.”
When DeSantis’ announcement first started at the scheduled time, it attracted up to 660,000 listeners at one point, according to Variety, and it caused the page to keep crashing. Host and moderator David Sacks, who is a Republican donor and friend of Elon’s, told the listeners, “You broke the internet,” while Elon said, “The servers are straining somewhat.” Once the site kept having difficulties, it didn’t take long for Twitter users to share their mocking tweets.
“Failure to launch,” some users wrote along with photos of rockets, while another wrote, “He just started his campaign and already it’s failed.” Others included manipulated GIFs of Donald Trump, who is also running once again for the Republican presidential seat, laughing and pointing at a computer screen. “Even Trump thinks it’s funny,” one user wrote along with it. “Today I learned that Ron DeSantis was supposed to personally go stress test Twitter’s servers,” another wrote.
Just hours before the Twitter delay for DeSantis’ campaign, the new presidential nominee filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission declaring his candidacy. He also released an announcement video on his own Twitter page. In the caption, he said the same thing he said on Twitter Spaces, which is that he was running for president “to lead our Great American Comeback.”
DeSantis will be going up against many candidates for the Republican presidential spot. In addition to Trump, some of them include talk radio host Larry Elder, former U.N. Ambassador and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley, and former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson.
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