Ron DeSantis’ official presidential run announcement on Twitter Spaces was a disaster, not so much for Ron, as it was for Twitter and Elon Musk. I can’t believe that Musk pushed Twitter Spaces to be the platform for DeSantis to announce his run for President. Considering how critical that initial formal announcement is, I would have thought that all of Twitter, Musk included, would have gone over the entire system with a fine tooth comb making sure that it could handle more than the projected traffic. Twitter Spaces is an audio-only platform, not audio and video. Based on numerous reports, by the time Spaces had settled down, DeSantis had around 300,00 listeners. That’s why I find it remarkable that Musk claimed over three million listened to him on Spaces last month when he was interviewed by the BBC. I really have to call bullshit on that claim.

Musk has had his way with Twitter ever since he purchased it late last year, firing and driving off at least half (if not more) of its initial engineering workforce. As a consequence unreliable Twitter has grown even more unreliable. I don’t believe that Spaces’ failure Wednesday night will hurt DeSantis’ election bid; it’s already mortally wounded by his incompetence and mismanagement. The greater damage will be to Musk and Twitter.