Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk said he would support Ron DeSantis in 2024 if the Florida governor runs for president.
DeSantis won a second term earlier this month, defeating Democratic opponent Charlie Crist by nearly 20 percentage points to be re-elected, and cemented himself as the Republican Party's top rising star.
DeSantis is seen as a potential challenger to former president Donald Trump among Republican presidential candidates. Trump had recently announced he will contest the 2024 election.
"My preference for the 2024 presidency is someone sensible and centrist. I had hoped that would be the case for the Biden administration, but have been disappointed so far," Musk said on Twitter.
When asked if he would support DeSantis in 2024, he replied in the affirmative.
"As a reminder, I was a significant supporter of the Obama-Biden presidency and (reluctantly) voted for Biden over Trump," he said.
In June, Musk had said the Florida governor would easily defeat Biden in the election.
DeSantis is popular with conservatives for taking the lead on culture war issues. The highlights of his tenure as a governor were his rejection of pandemic-related health restrictions, passage of a law limiting discussion of LGBTQ issues in schools, and a feud with Walt Disney over the law.
Musk had urged Americans to elect a Republican Congress in the US midterm elections earlier this month, but the Democrats retained control of the Senate while the Republicans only won a narrow majority in the House of Representatives.
Twitter's ban on Trump after Capitol attack 'grave mistake'
Musk also said the Twitter ban on Trump after the US Capitol attack on January 6, 2021, was a “grave mistake”.
The Twitter handle of the former US president was reinstated recently after Musk ran a poll in which users narrowly backed the move.
Trump was permanently suspended from the social media site by Twitter's previous management in January 2021, just days after the attempted insurrection by pro-Trump supporters at the US Capitol. His supporters attacked the Capitol as the US Congress attempted to certify Biden's victory in the 2020 presidential election.
"I'm fine with Trump not tweeting. The important thing is that Twitter correct a grave mistake in banning his account, despite no violation of the law or terms of service," Musk said in a tweet. "Deplatforming a sitting President undermined public trust in Twitter for half of America."
Trump, however, had said he had no interest in returning to Twitter. He added he would stick with his own social media site Truth Social, the app developed by Trump Media & Technology Group.
