Mayor invites Elon Musk and Twitter to relocate: ‘Miami is a global city’
Miami Mayor Francis Suarez invited Twitter to move to the city amid Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout of the social-media company.
“We’d love to have Twitter here,” Suarez said Friday during an interview at a Bloomberg Power Players event in Miami. “We think what he is trying to accomplish with Twitter dovetails very nicely with the brand of the city of Miami.”
Suarez, who noted the city’s growth in both tech-job creation and migration, said he hadn’t yet talked to Musk about a potential move but pointed to other companies adding office space in the city, including Microsoft. Suarez said there had also been talk about Apple and Cisco Systems.
“I think we’re on the cusp of getting something big, like, you know, Jeff Bezos moving here or Elon Musk moving here,” Suarez said.
Miami and Austin, Texas, are emerging tech hubs. But to Suarez, there’s no contest.
“There’s nobody in Sao Paulo or Paris, or, you know, or any other part of the world saying, ‘Man, I can’t wait to get on that plane to Austin,’ ” he said to widespread laughter. “It’s not an international city. I don’t think they would argue that they’re an international city. I think Miami is a global city.”
Last month, the state’s finance chief advocated Twitter moving to Florida in a letter to Musk. Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wouldn’t try to lure the company to the Sunshine State because it would increase living expenses for residents.
Florida Republicans aiming to punish Disney have hit their own voters instead.
Suarez was asked at the conference about Florida’s controversial dispute with Walt Disney Co., after the company criticized legislation signed by DeSantis that placed limits on grade school instruction about sexual orientation and gender identity. The mayor said he thinks children should be learning about sexuality from their parents.
“At the same time, we have a thriving LGBTQ community here in Miami, and that’s something that we also believe in nurturing,” he said. “It’s part of our identity, like part of the diversity of our city is that we do have that, and we embrace that. And I’m a Republican, I’m not ashamed to say that.”
Suarez said that he hadn’t talked to DeSantis in three years and that he regretted the loss of Kara Swisher’s Pivot conference in Miami because of the controversy.
“These ideological battles have real consequences. Right, and they affect people, they affect people’s lives, they affect people’s jobs,” he said. “And I think that’s something we’ve got to really be conscientious of.”
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