Ron DeSantis White House launch plagued by Twitter meltdown

This illustration photo shows the live Twitter talk with Elon Musk on a background of Ron DeSantis as he announces his 2024 presidential run on his Twitter page, May 24, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. DeSantis kicked off his 2024 presidential campaign May 24, 2023 with a live event opposite Twitter boss Elon Musk that descended into farce as it was beset by technical bugs. — AFP

WASHINGTON: Florida governor Ron DeSantis’s long-awaited entry into the 2024 presidential campaign descended into a fiasco on May 24 as the opening of the live Twitter event intended to announce his candidacy was derailed by glitches.

The conversation repeatedly crashed as the platform’s servers were apparently overwhelmed, and many of the 400,000-plus users who were hoping to listen in missed the 44-year-old conservative throwing down the gauntlet to Republican primary frontrunner Donald Trump.