According to media sources, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is set to announce his 2024 Presidential bid in an online appearance with Twitter CEO Elon Musk tonight.
Musk is scheduled to host a Twitter Spaces conversation with the conservative Republican and an official launch video from the DeSantis campaign is expected later the same evening.
DeSantis, 44, is viewed as former president Donald Trump's chief rival for the Republican Party's nomination.
"I will be interviewing Ron DeSantis and he has quite an announcement to make," Musk confirmed, promising the event on Twitter spaces would be unscripted with "real time questions and answers."
"It's going to be live. Let it rip," Musk told a Wall Street Journal conference.
DeSantis has used his platform as Florida's chief executive to burnish his conservative credentials, signing off on 80 new state laws this spring, many targeting "woke indoctrination" in schools and other public institutions.
DeSantis’ ultraconservative policies have led to a backlash from liberals, with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) issuing a formal travel advisory last week in response to what the group described as the Governor’s “aggressive attempts to erase Black history and to restrict diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in Florida schools”.
“This othering that we have seen first by Trump, now by him, is not only un-American, it’s dangerous, and we have to right-size this landscape,” NAACP President Derrick Johnson had said on CNN This Morning.
"Under the leadership of Governor Desantis, the state of Florida has become hostile to Black Americans and in direct conflict with the democratic ideals that our union was founded upon,” he added.
The governor joins a growing list of contenders seeking to unseat Trump, who leads by more than 30 points in national opinion polls.
Republican voters go to the polls in a series of primary elections beginning next February to determine which candidate will face President Joe Biden, a Democrat, in the November 2024 general election.
The event will be moderated by tech entrepreneur David Sacks, a close ally of the Tesla founder and a supporter of DeSantis.
A Fox News tweet about the upcoming Twitter Spaces "interview" was retweeted by Musk to his 140 million followers.
The tech mogul has previously expressed support for DeSantis in 2024, including writing on Twitter last November that his preference is for "someone sensible and centrist".
