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The Ron and Elon Show
On Wednesday, May 24, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis launched his long-expected 2024 run for the presidency of the United States. He did this on Twitter while being interviewed by Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, the rocket company Space X, and Tesla.
Appearing together on Twitter was in part probably an effort by the two men to leverage the results of a recent Harris poll, which had the Florida governor and the tech entrepreneur being two of the three most popular political figures in America. Musk was first, Trump was second, and Ron DeSantis came in third.
Gov. Desantis was able to announce his candidacy for free in a friendly non-MSM media environment. He’s also using Elon Musk’s huge Twitter fan base (140.5 million as of this writing) to reach out to independent voters who generally trend younger and have a strong distaste for Donald Trump and what they think is his rude and over-the-top pugnacious style. Even if half of those followers turn out to be bots, DeSantis may still have the chance to pick up a sizable chunk of the tech visionary’s devoted followers.
And if you don’t think Musk’s fans aren’t an enthusiastic bunch, just go and check out this YouTube video from Space X’s launch control Center in Hawthorne, CA.
People should also note that despite the fact that Twitter briefly crashed due to the large numbers of people attempting to view the broadcast — up to 700,000 at one point — DeSantis’s campaign still managed to raise $8.2 million in campaign donations in the first 24 hours after the broadcast. In contrast, Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign garnered just $9.5 million in its first six weeks.
DeSantis’s essentially 24/7 access to Twitter can only serve to amplify the efforts of the more formal campaign organization he’s now building. The organizers of Never Back Down, the super PAC that’s backing DeSantis’s run for the White House, are planning to spend $200 million supporting the Florida governor’s presidential bid and, of course, defeat Trump during the Republican primary season. Among other things, much of that money will fund 2,600 field workers who will knock on the door of every potential Republican primary voter in New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina at least four times and five times in the critically important Iowa caucuses.
As one may expect, Elon Musk isn’t providing DeSantis with potentially billions of dollars in free advertising just out of his well-known devotion to free speech rights. There are other solid reasons for him to back DeSantis’s run for the White House.
First is Musk’s belief that Donald Trump can’t beat Joe Biden come November 2024. By extension, the EV and space magnate almost certainly believes that another four years of Democratic rule will mean America’s economic ruin and the crippling of his multiple business enterprises. Especially his pride and joy, Space X. After all, he needs customers outside the government to put payloads on his rockets, which requires a healthy economy.
For Musk, Space X, with its Falcon rockets and its massive Starship/Super Heavy launch vehicle, is his ticket to achieving his lifelong dream of colonizing Mars and making humanity a multi-planetary species.
So having the former governor of the state that hosts the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in the Oval Office would give a definite boost to Musk’s long-sought goal of space colonization. Including easing his dealings with the DC swamp, something he has already had some unpleasant encounters with.
Back in 2019, Musk was forced to sue the USAF to allow Space X to compete for launch contracts. His main opponent in this case may not have been the USAF itself, but instead the so-called legacy aerospace companies like Boeing and Lockheed Martin who were eager to protect their launch services monopoly.
More recently, there are the difficulties he’s had with the FAA and environmentalists concerning operations at his Boca Chica launch site in South Texas. Space X received the green light from the FAA for Starship’s first launch attempt in June 2022, and that preliminary approval was only given after several years of negotiations. And even then, Space X was forced to comply with a lengthy list of “mitigations” — including a report on the area’s historical importance — in order to receive its launch license.
Starship’s first test flight on April 20 was only partially successful since while it managed to reach a height of 29 km before it veered out of control and had to be blown up, it failed to reach orbit. The huge rocket also devastated its launch pad during liftoff due to the unexpectedly powerful blast of its 33 engines. Moreover, smashing the launch pad scattered concrete chunks and steel rebar up and down the beach at Boca Chica, with debris often falling far outside the FAA’s designated safety zone. This forced the agency to halt all future Starship flights while it investigated the incident.
That’s normal procedure for the FAA after an accident, but then a coalition of environmental groups sued the FAA, claiming it had issued Space X its launch license after only a cursory environmental review. Space X joined the FAA in defending against the lawsuit, saying that the FAA would be more concerned with defending its own interests than Space X’s.
If the FAA loses in court and is forced to carry out a full environmental review of Space X’s Boca Chica operation, Starship’s next flight could be delayed by up to two years, unhinging not only Musk’s own plans for the rocket but NASA’s lunar landing plans as well, since a modified Starship upper stage is slated to land US astronauts on the moon in 2025 or 2026. A friendly voice at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue would undoubtedly help mitigate any future problems Musk might have with snail-paced bureaucrats and hostile Greens.
Will the Ron and Elon show be able to defeat Trump in the 2024 Republican primaries and then go on to win the general in November? To be honest, it’s far too early to make any solid predictions about how the 2024 presidential race will play out since there are just too many potential disruptions out there that could quickly turn any political forecast into laughable garbage. But you can be confident about one thing: if nothing else, the matchup between Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis, with Elon Musk providing political fire support through Twitter, will be very far from boring. The same goes for November 2024 and whoever their Democratic opponent is if the political duo manages to sideline Trump.
Published in General
Hey Elon – launch some more Starlink satellites already . . .
Intervention by SpaceX awaits action:
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/67303601/center-for-biological-diversity-v-federal-aviation-administration/
The SpaceX Launch Manifest page is a pinned tab on my browser. In other words, I always have it open.
I can see all upcoming launches, or look at past ones. I like to watch the launches and the first stage landings. Watching those rockets land is thrilling!
At this moment I am watching the live stream of a SpaceX launch scheduled in 2 minutes.
The commenter was mentioned the soot visible on the booster is from it’s previous launch! They haven’t even taken time to wash the thing off before launching it again.
Many thanks for the link, Gerald, I now have it bookmarked.
We watched to see the launch today–out of our kitchen window!! But it was too cloudy from our location, so we had to settle for TV. Not that I’m bragging or anything . . .
He has been doing just that:
“SpaceX launched 52 more of its Starlink broadband satellites early Wednesday morning (May 31) and landed the returning rocket on a ship at sea.“
They couldn’t find a big enough carwash.
If I were a young I would head to Texas and work for Space X. The opportunities for low/no-g businesses are so incredible.
Twitter’s decision to host the DeSantis campaign launch struck me as all about boosting the prestige and importance of Twitter. I don’t think it was intended as backing for DeSantis. It was a business decision and I think Musk would do it for almost any candidate for the same reason.
That said I agree it’s clear that the libertarian leaning Musk would strongly prefer anyone to Biden or another authoritarian progressive Democrat and it is reasonable that he would prefer candidate DeSantis to candidate Trump. I sure do. In my mind, Musk is almost doing God’s work by opening Twitter up to freer wider discourse. I would hate to see it tainted in the way MSNBC and Fox are.
Interesting read on Space-X and its regulatory troubles. The Biden admin has also been unfriendly to the “greenest” automaker Tesla. Perhaps because they are non-union.
Dear @terrysmith,
I agree with you entirely about Trump vs. DeSantis. I think Governor Desantis would do far better in the general election than Trump. Yet the polls still show DJT decisively outpolling DeSantis. The Lemmings are marching into the Red Sea-and I don’t mean the biblical version.
People seem to be more interested in gratifying their lust for vengeance over the results of the 2020 election than actually winning.