Elon Musk’s event with Ron DeSantis exposes Twitter’s weaknesses

Hosting Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at a Twitter audio event on Wednesday to announce that his presidential run would be a triumphant moment for Twitter owner Elon Musk.

Instead, the event started with more than 20 minutes of technical glitches, hot microphone moments, and drowned out and half-hearted conversations before the livestream abruptly stopped. Minutes later, the live stream resumed as hundreds of thousands of listeners tried to tune in. Mr. DeSantis hadn’t said a word at that point.

“That was insane, sorry,” said Mr. Musk.

Behind the stop-start Twitter Space, an audio-only live stream on the social network, was a company that has undergone major changes in recent months. Since Mr. Musk bought Twitter for $44 billion last year, he has reshaped it by cutting more than 75 percent of the workforce, changing speech rules and reinstating suspended users. The number of outages is on the rise, as are bugs that have made Twitter less useful.

Wednesday’s technical glitches showed how far from seamless Twitter works, making what could be an award for Mr. Musk should have become a little embarrassed.

The event was an opportunity for Mr. Musk, an unpredictable manager with interests in many fields, to promote multiple agendas. Those include a political coming out for the billionaire, who has flirted with right-wing accounts and politics on Twitter for years, but has never embraced a presidential candidate as he has Mr. DeSantis. And it would be a way for Mr. Musk to further his business interests by highlighting Twitter, which he is trying to turn around.

“He is making it clear that he will use his media platform to advance his own political interests in a way that is unprecedentedly overt,” said Jason Goldman, former vice president of product at Twitter.

Mr Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

This is an evolving story. Check back later for updates.