Nikki Haley joined Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and Vivek Ramaswamy on Wednesday in the fourth Republican primary debate, held in Alabama. After many crosses and viral moments starring alongside the businessman, Haley received strong criticism from Elon Musk, who practically ruled her out of the presidential race.
Haley had taken advantage of the previous debates to gain momentum, which was enough to reach third place among the Republican preferences. She sometimes rivals for second place with DeSantis, who already took her as his competition to beat since both share the strategy of being the only alternative to Donald Trump.
However, the fourth night did not seem like Haley's best. "She h had the worst night. By now, we expect Ramaswamy to get booed for inflammatory comments. We expect Christie to be the only one to try to go after Trump. But Haley seemed less at ease and on the defensive throughout the night. She faced questions about her net worth exploding in recent years and her embrace of Democratic donors. She was forced to defend her record on some transgender policies," POLITICO's Natalie Allison wrote of her.
"Her campaign is dead"
Another who didn't like Haley's performance was Elon Musk, who literally shut her out of the conversation by replying to a user on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Replicating what someone else was saying about her, the South African tycoon added the following, "Her campaign is dead."
Her campaign is dead
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 7, 2023
Musk's stance on the Republican primaries is uncertain, although he has already shown winks for Tim Scott, Vivek Ramaswamy or Ron DeSantis. As for the latter, he was even part of his campaign pitch made via an X Space.
The connection was a bit bumpy for that event, as the server crashed a couple of times due to the amount of people who connected live to hear the announcement. After about thirty minutes of uncertainty, they were able to start normally. "The servers are struggling a bit," the mogul slipped when the number of attendees surpassed 700,000.
