- Ron DeSantis launched his 2024 campaign for president on Wednesday in a glitchy Twitter Space.
- His campaign bragged they "broke the internet" and others said it was the largest online event ever.
On Wednesday, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis $4 for the GOP presidential nomination.
But the streamed launch event, hosted by Elon Musk and tech entrepreneur David Sacks on Twitter Spaces, was plagued by technical difficulties. Audio cut out, Spaces crashed, and the stream faced repeated glitches that prompted DeSantis' campaign to abruptly end and restart the stream nearly half an hour later.
At its peak, roughly 600,000 people were in the Twitter Space. But by the time the launch restarted, that number was down over half.
"I think you broke the internet there," Sacks said, $4 "by far the biggest room ever held on social media."
It wasn't. Here are 9 online events that were bigger than DeSantis' 2024 campaign launch — and didn't glitch out:
- The $4 held on the same day as DeSantis' campaign launch peaked at over 2.5 million viewers.
- Buzzfeed's 2016 livestream of two people $4 had more than 800,000 viewers on Facebook Live.
- $4 in 2017 drew in more than 1.2 million live viewers at its peak on YouTube.
- K-pop group BTS $4 in 2020, amassing 756,000 attendees at once.
- Almost 30 million players attended $4 in 2020.
- And before that, 10 million people watched $4 in 2019.
- Over 400,000 players simultaneously tuned in to $4 on Twitch in 2020, more than those who heard DeSantis' announcement.
- Rapper $4 after being released from prison in 2020 had 2 million viewers.
- Soccer star Christiano Ronaldo garnered over 700,000 viewers in an $4.