Yahoo Finance Musk hosts anti-vax presidential candidate in Twitter live event
Elon Musk is courting another US presidential candidate in the form of Robert F Kennedy Jr, a prominent anti-vaccine activist, just weeks after Ron DeSantis’ car-crash campaign launch on Twitter.
The Tesla chief executive will interview Mr Kennedy, the 69-year-old nephew of US president John F Kennedy, on a Twitter Space live interview later on Monday.
It is expected that the two will discuss Mr Kennedy’s bid to become the Democratic candidate for the 2024 US election, first announced in April.
It follows Mr DeSantis declaring his candidacy to run for the Republican nomination on Twitter last month, in a live event that was plagued by glitches and awkward silences.
The launch was held with Mr Musk and host David Sacks, who said the hiccups were down to the sheer volume of people tuning in and “melting the servers”.
Mr Musk personally invited Mr Kennedy to appear in a similar event on the social media platform’s live video platform last week.
In response to Mr Kennedy complaining that his team were being immediately banned from Twitter for 180 days when signing up using their campaign email addresses, Mr Musk wrote: “Would you like to do a Spaces discussion with me next week?”
Interesting… when we use our TeamKennedy email address to set up @instagram accounts we get an automatic 180-day ban. Can anyone guess why that’s happening? pic.twitter.com/0G8oRnoXTv
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) June 2, 2023
Twitter’s founder Jack Dorsey has also publicly endorsed Mr Kennedy.
“He can and will,” Mr Dorsey wrote on Twitter alongside a video of Mr Kennedy arguing he can beat Donald Trump if the latter secures the Republican nomination for 2024.
In response to a user asking if the tweet was a formal endorsement or a prediction, Mr Dorsey replied: “Both”.
He can and will https://t.co/zrKLc2BKhz
— jack (@jack) June 4, 2023
Other big tech bosses have reinstated Kennedy’s banned social media accounts despite the would-be Democrat nominee’s history of anti-vaccine posts.
Earlier this week, Mr Kennedy had a suspension from Instagram lifted. “As he is now an active candidate for president of the United States, we have restored access to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s Instagram account,” Meta spokesperson Andy Stone told the Washington Post.
Mr Kennedy previously said Joe Biden’s chief public health advisor, Anthony Fauci, orchestrated “fascism” during the pandemic.
Recent polls suggested a fifth of Democrats support the challenge by the son of the former US attorney general.
While Mr Kennedy has little hope of unseating Joe Biden, up to 20pc of Democrats say they are prepared to vote for someone other than the 80-year-old sitting president.
Long-running concerns about Mr Biden’s health have centred on the president’s age, becoming public again
Mr Kennedy was banned from Instagram in February 2021 for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines”, according to a company spokesman at the time.
The Democrat environmental lawyer, whose father was assassinated by a pro-Palestine terrorist during his own presidential campaign in 1968, was outspoken against Covid-19 vaccines and the medical establishment during the pandemic years.
He described Anthony Fauci, President Biden’s chief medical adviser during the pandemic, as “adopting a militarized response to a public health crisis” and accusing him of “catastrophic mismanagement” of the US’ medical response to Covid-19.
