‘What the heck Is going on!?’ Jamaal Bowman says of Twitter issues on election day

As Twitter’s new owner, billionaire Elon Musk, faces intense criticism for his handling of the social media giant and encouraging voters to support GOP congressional candidates, U.S. Rep. Jamaal Bowman on Tuesday revealed that he spent hours trying to post an Election Day video from his campaign account.

“Why isn’t Twitter allowing me to tell people to vote Democrat? Is Elon on his BS right now?” the New York Democrat tweeted just before 6:40 am ET—swiftly adding, “Oh this tweet was sent without a problem.”

“Twitter not letting me post videos. This is crazy. Never happened before. What’s Elon doing?” he said with a screenshot a few minutes later. The screenshot showed a Twitter notification that said: “We’re sorry, we weren’t able to send your tweet. Would you like to retry or save this tweet in drafts?”

“I swear this keeps happening. Is this happening to anyone else?” Bowman asked around 7:00 am. Roughly 20 minutes later, he shared:  “Still happening! Haven’t been able to post a video for over an hour. What the heck is going on!?”

Near 11:00 am, he tweeted: “Ok I seem to have my video posting privileges back… Don’t understand why that took four hours.” However, a few hours later he added: “False alarm. Still nothing.”

“I’m literally getting this message all day while trying to share a 31-second video from my phone,” he later wrote with another screenshot. “It’s never happened before. I am a Democratic candidate. Today is Election Day. What the heck is going on!?”

The progressive congressman’s troubles with Twitter came after Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had issues with her account last week following her use of the platform to criticize Musk—the richest person in the world, according to Forbes.

Ocasio-Cortez joined those slamming Musk’s plan to charge Twitter users $8 per month for a “verified” account, a status signaled by a blue checkmark and typically used to confirm public figures such as politicians, journalists, celebrities, and business leaders are who they claim to be.

Ocasio-Cortez took to Instagram to share that she was having issues with her Twitter account, saying in a video, “So it turns out, we got under a certain little billionaire’s skin, because I made fun of his silly little plan to charge people for verification and priority placement.”