Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said Monday that he is wholly in favor of mega-billionaire Elon Musk taking over Twitter.
But as for having Twitter itself in the Sunshine State, DeSantis said he’ll take a hard pass.
The governor addressed the issue during a press conference in Jacksonville. He said he believed the state has done well in recruiting companies “that are producing things.” His administration, he added, has “worked really hard on vocational and career education.”
Yet “importing some tech company from San Francisco has not been high on our list,” said DeSantis.
“I think that what happens is they tend to come in, they drive up the cost of living for everybody else, and okay, yeah, they enjoy our lower taxes, but you know … what are they really providing?” he offered.
DeSantis clearly indicated he favors Musk’s buyout of the social media platform. That’s because, he said, “I think that platform has been used as a tool to enforce narratives and to stifle dissent when it was born to be an open platform.”
The governor offered another reason why he applauded Musk: Florida will profit from the sale.
Based on what Musk has offered for Twitter, Florida’s pension fund, as a Twitter shareholder, could earn up to $20 million. The governor noted that’s why the State Board of Administration, which includes himself as well as Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis and Attorney General Ashley Moody, issued Twitter a letter before it finalized the deal that reminded the company of its fiduciary duty to shareholders.
At a different press conference last week, DeSantis said the letter told Twitter’s board of directors, “Look, Elon Musk is putting a very good offer on the table, and you’d better have a good business reason why you’re not doing it because, if this is politics, we’re going to hold you accountable.”
In Jacksonville, DeSantis noted that Musk “has succeeded in almost every enterprise he’s ever done. … He will make that company more valuable. I have no doubt about it.”
Yet despite that, and Musk’s SpaceX venture in Florida, the governor added, “I’m not wanting to import that necessarily into the state.”
“I would rather have more industry, I’d rather have more jobs that will actually be rooted in the state and we’re working on some good stuff, some good manufacturing,” said DeSantis, noting progress in the aerospace and finance industries.
“In terms of … bringing Twitter from San Francisco to Florida, you know, that’s not something that I’m advocating,” he concluded.
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