Elon Musk aims to transform Twitter into a “digital town square,” but his recent Twitter Spaces launch event experienced technical problems and a nearly 30-minute delay on Tuesday.
During the audio-only event, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced his presidential candidacy, but the number of listeners was far below televised presidential announcements, peaking at around 420,000 despite the event’s promotion. Musk attributed these technical difficulties to the large volume of attendees “straining” the servers, which was a good sign according to host David Sacks.
Despite the technical difficulties, the Twitter Spaces launch event eventually concluded without any further disruptions. After the event was over, Musk, DeSantis, and Sacks all proclaimed it a success. Sacks made a joke, saying “it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish — and we finished really strong.”
The day before the event, Musk characterized it as a groundbreaking moment for Twitter, stating that it would be “the first time something like this is happening on social media.” The event was scheduled to start at 6 p.m. ET, but it was ultimately delayed by around 30 minutes due to technical difficulties. Users reported being kicked off, hearing microphone feedback, and other issues before the event finally began, with the audience remaining below 500,000.
Opponents of DeSantis took advantage of the delayed announcement and used it as an opportunity to criticize the governor.
Steven Cheung, a spokesperson for former President and current candidate Donald Trump, criticized the event and made a joke at the expense of DeSantis, saying “Glitchy. Tech issues. Uncomfortable silences. A complete failure to launch. And that’s just the candidate!”
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat from New York, made a comment about the event on Twitter, saying “We had more people join when I played Among Us,” which refers to her previous Among Us game stream that attracted a larger audience.
Since Musk took over, Twitter has experienced a slew of technical issues, in part due to the firing or layoff of about 80% of its staff, including engineers responsible for maintaining the site. Despite these issues, Musk expressed optimism about the future of Twitter during a speech at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London a day prior to the DeSantis event. Musk said he plans to hire more personnel, although he did not provide further details.
Musk purchased Twitter last fall for $44 billion and has since overhauled the platform’s verification system and relaxed its content moderation policies in line with his views as a “free speech absolutist.” He has also promoted misinformation and interacted with far-right figures while working to lure advertisers back to the platform to turn it profitable. Musk’s ultimate goal, he has often stated, is to transform Twitter into an “everything app” available to everyone, a digital public forum where people can hear directly from politicians and world leaders without the need for traditional media as an intermediary.
Although Musk has said that he hopes to make Twitter an “everything app,” in recent months, he appears to be more focused on courting conservatives and Republicans. He has referred to Democrats and liberals as being “infected by the ‘woke mind virus,” and he has also reinstated extremist accounts that the previous administration of Twitter had banned.
Despite Musk’s efforts to court conservative and Republican users, it remains to be seen if Twitter can become a reliable platform for mainstream politicians, given its ongoing instability. For example, the word “DeSaster” trended on Twitter on Wednesday evening as users mocked the botched campaign launch.
In traditional media and politics, a glitchy half-hour delayed event with only hundreds of thousands of viewers may be seen as a failure. But in Silicon Valley, failure is often seen as a positive aspect and a necessary part of developing new products and improving existing ones. Twitter Spaces, which Twitter launched in 2020 to compete with popular audio chat site Clubhouse, generally does not have an audience in the hundreds of thousands, so it was not surprising that the event was plagued with technical issues.
Jo-Ellen Pozner, a business professor at Santa Clara University, stated that the situation is much worse for DeSantis than for Musk. Pozner noted that just last month, SpaceX launched a rocket that exploded a few minutes after launch from Texas. Despite the setback, Musk remarked about the explosion being an “exciting test launch of Starship!” on Twitter. In comparison to DeSantis, Musk has an easier time addressing the issue, as he can apply the classic Silicon Valley approach of failing fast and learning more by saying that this was the first attempt and that he’ll do better next time.
Pozner added that this is clearly a challenging situation for DeSantis, who wants to project competence and avoid criticism.
Pozner stated that it’s currently an open question how Twitter will be valued as a broad digital platform in the future, and much of that will depend on how Musk and top management handle the technical issues and how they address them.
After DeSantis ended his call, Musk and Sacks invited other presidential candidates to participate in a Twitter Spaces event, but whether or not any other candidates agree to participate will likely determine what the future holds for Twitter as a “public square.”