Elon Musk and Ron DeSantis Campaign Launch Interview on Twitter Plagued by Tech Issues

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' launch of his campaign for the Republican nomination for president on Wednesday was marred by technological issues with Twitter's live audio conversation feature.

The Twitter spaces initially went on for 21 minutes in relative silence and featured some 600,000 listeners, while DeSantis repeatedly failing to connect to the Twitter Space conversation with Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.

"We have got a massive number of people online," Musk said when the stream had around 400,000 listeners. "Servers are straining somewhat."

The stream then ended at 6:21 p.m. eastern time, and users got an alert saying "This space has ended." The spaces eventually got underway, much later than anticipated and with far fewer listeners initially. Some users reported they were not able to see the renewed spaces at all.

President Joe Biden's campaign team took the opportunity to poke fun at the failure to launch.

"This link works," the president's campaign Twitter account posted, alongside a link to donate to his campaign.

Twitter users reported different experiences with the tech glitches. Some were unable to access the conversation at all, while others were able to join before being kicked out.

Around 30 minutes after the conversation was scheduled to begin, DeSantis announced his campaign launch. He was joined by Musk and investor David Sacks.

Meanwhile, #DeSaster began to trend on Twitter as users mocked the launch gone wrong. Senior adviser to former President Donald Trump called the situation "a disaster" and said it was "not surprising." Congresswoman Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, tweeted that "We had more people join when I played Among Us."

Fewer than 300,000 people were present in the spaces by 7:00 p.m. EST, less than half of the initial audience.