Ron DeSantis calls in Elon Musk to launch White House bid

Ron DeSantis will end months of speculation on Thursday by announcing that he is running for president during a discussion with Elon Musk.

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis at the Florida State Capitol in Tallahassee. Picture: AFP

Ron DeSantis will end months of speculation on Thursday by announcing that he is running for president during a discussion broadcast on Twitter with its chief executive, Elon Musk.

The Florida Governor, 44, will also launch his first campaign video as he finally ends the worst-kept secret in American politics after a low-key shadow campaign that has seen Donald Trump take a big lead among Republicans for the party’s 2024 nomination.

Mr DeSantis is set to play on the age gap with the 76-year-old Mr Trump, pledging a more vigorous approach combined with an aggressive “anti-woke” agenda.

Unlike Mr Trump, who served as the 45th president from 2017-21, Mr DeSantis can offer Republican voters the prospect of setting up two terms in the White House, the maximum allowed under the constitution.

However, even some of the Governor’s supporters are worried that he has waited too long to launch his campaign after Mr Trump announced his third run for the White House in November.

Mr Musk, 51, replied “yes” when asked on Twitter in November whether he would support Mr DeSantis after saying that he wanted “someone sensible and centrist”.

Mr Musk and Mr DeSantis will take part in an event on Twitter Spaces, the site’s platform for audio conversations at 6pm Eastern Time, 8am in Australia. It will be moderated by David Sacks, a tech entrepreneur who is a Musk confidant and a DeSantis supporter.

Mr DeSantis is then due to visit early primary states after the Memorial Day bank holiday on Monday. The announcement coincides with a gathering at the Four Seasons Hotel in Miami for fundraisers who have pledged to support Mr DeSantis. The DeSantis team had been in talks with Mr Musk for at least the past few weeks, NBC News reported, during which Mr Musk indicated that he did not think that Mr Trump could win back the White House.

“Musk is interested in the future,” a source told NBC. The Twitter chief has become a favourite with Republicans since he bought the platform for $US44bn, establishing himself as a critic of “corporate media”.

The launch will give Mr DeSantis access to Mr Musk’s 140.6 million followers on Twitter. The platform has lifted all restrictions imposed on Mr Trump after the riot by his supporters at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, but he has not returned to posting on it, preferring his own Truth Social site.

Mr DeSantis was re-elected Florida governor by a resounding 19.4-point margin in November, while Mr Trump seemed to blow his chances of a comeback when several candidates he promoted flopped during the midterm elections, costing the party control of the Senate.

The Florida Governor was ahead in most polling for the Republican nomination at the start of the year but since then Mr Trump has turned the tables and steadily built a commanding lead.

THE TIMES