(Bloomberg) — Miami Mayor Francis Suarez invited Twitter Inc. 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 Corp. Suarez said there had also been talk about Apple Inc. and Cisco Systems Inc.
“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, joking that he thought Musk would have relocated to Miami instead of Austin, Texas, had the move happened more recently.
“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. Governor Ron DeSantis said he wouldn’t try to lure the company to the Sunshine State because it would increase living expenses for residents.
Read more: DeSantis Says He Won’t Lure Twitter to Florida
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 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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