“The question is, is Musk looking to be a platform or is he looking to be a player?” said David Tamasi, a Republican fundraiser. He said it’s unclear whether Musk wants to use his wealth to influence elections. “I don’t think we know the answer to that.”

“A central theme of politics nowadays — and we’ve certainly seen this with the Biden campaign too — is influencer marketing. There’s no one more influential on Twitter than Elon Musk.”

Republican strategist Eric Wilson

Musk isn’t yet a big political donor, especially considering the size of his fortune, estimated at $US180 billion, according to Bloomberg’s wealth index. Musk hasn’t put much of his money into politics, donating just $US529,000 since 2009, Federal Election Commission records show.

Musk’s appearance with DeSantis contrasts with other billionaire donors who have shown signs of hesitancy around his campaign.

Steve Schwarzman, the co-founder of Blackstone, is holding off on donating to the Florida governor for now after meeting with him recently, Bloomberg reported this month. Thomas Peterffy, the founder of Interactive Brokers, has said publicly he’s withholding support for DeSantis.

Spaces audience

It’s unclear how many people exactly tuned into the Twitter Spaces event at 6pm ET on Wednesday to hear DeSantis and Musk. Only 23 per cent of US adults say they use the social-media platform, according to Pew Research Center data from 2022, though an account isn’t required to access the audio stream.

The launch went disastrously wrong when the platform kept crashing and booting out users before the Republican could even say a word. At one point, music could be heard playing, before Musk was heard muttering that “we’ve just had a massive number of people online so the service is straining somewhat.”

Twenty-five minutes later, the session resumed and DeSantis was finally able to make his pitch as the person to beat Joe Biden, framing himself as the future of the Republican Party.

In November, 2.7 million listeners tuned in to Musk’s hour-long question and answer session with Robin Wheeler, then head of Twitter’s ad sales. The following month, 2.2 million joined at some point for an event featuring Musk that ran for more than five hours.

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A Twitter announcement had one notable advantage for DeSantis, who has repeatedly attacked the press: he could avoid reporters’ questions.

Additionally, the announcement was likely to attract more coverage because it’s unconventional and features someone other than just the candidate, said Eric Wilson, a Republican strategist at Bullpen Strategy Group.

“A central theme of politics nowadays — and we’ve certainly seen this with the Biden campaign too — is influencer marketing,” he said. “There’s no one more influential on Twitter than Elon Musk.”