Elon Cleaning House

My faith in the board is growing. Yes, if Trump or DeSantis was to respond to an online insult with the threat of using Congress against them, I would be just as concerned. If they have before, shame on them. Musk has some kinks to work out with Twitter. It’s been three whole weeks. Markey needs to get real. Teslas are like the safest cars out there.

 

I thought this was going to be another blue check prank when I first saw the headline. Really is his mom.

Elon Musk's Mother Calls Him A "Genius", Urges Critics To "Stop Being Mean to Him"

Elon Musk's mother, Maye Musk, recently defended her billionaire son and urged his critics to "stop being mean to him".

Maye Musk was interviewed as part of a BBC documentary where she described the world's richest person as a "genius". She also stated that because of his massive success her son "gets a lot of hate".

 

but you're okay with DeS going after Disney, the DA he replaced, and replacing the school board, enacting an electoral map he knew would be illegal, breaking all bidding and funding rules to fly immigrants to Martha Vineyards, and getting the superintendent fired because they didn't follow his mask rules? Using the exec branch authority to punish enemies seems to be no problem for him. Rigging maps he knew ould be declared illegal may very well determine who controls Congress. Are you okay with that if a dem decides to do the same?

 

None of that is the same as threatening adverse Congressional action over a tweet. Especially when Markey is the one who started the exchange. Musk zinged him pretty good and Markey went into fascism mode almost reflexively. Kinda scary and has nothing to do with DeSantis.

 

I don’t believe Elon’s mother is this naive. The hate for Elon Musk currently stems from his taking Twitter away from the left. I suppose you could still say it’s due to his success, because his success afforded him to purchase Twitter in the first place, but make no mistake Ms. Musk, the hate is 100% due to libs free lunch being taken away.

 

Following the UVA shooting is reportedly harder with so many fake verified accounts out there.

 

Seems to be a more regular occurence with govt officials, not good.

 

going after Disney because they support their employees is worse.
removing a duly elected school board in a dem county and replacing them with a pub board so they could fire the superintendent who required masks is worse.
redrawing maps to help the pub party take control of congress when he knew the maps would be ruled illegal (after the election) is worse

I could go on..

and this is what he was willing to do with just state powers. What would he do with POTUS authority and a congress who has abdicated their responsibility for executive branch oversight via impeachment.

the man honestly believes that it is his destiny to be POTUS and the ends justify the means. Most people still don't recognize just how truly off kilter the man is and I fear they will not until after he is elected POTUS (if 1) he gets thru the primaries 2) DT doesn't run as an indy or tell all his crowd to stay home, and 3) Dems fail to field a good candidate (again))

 

Musk is now whining that he has too much on his plate.

I see him largely stepping away fro not only Twitter but Tesla as well.

He bit off more than he could chew.

 

Aaron Rupar and Noah Berlatsky with the best description I have seen of the way I view these events, which also describes so much of the pet causes of the current Right:


Musk purchased Twitter in large part because he wanted to be in a position to harm many of its core users — journalists, liberals, Democrats, trans people, and other marginalized communities. Twitter is a flawed but nonetheless invaluable place where these groups have come together to talk, to strategize, to fundraise, to organize, and to hold the powerful accountable.

Musk is a billionaire transphobe who’s been convicted of union-busting and has been sued for racially segregating his factory floor. He’s also pathologically online. (He met his ex-partner, the musician Grimes, on Twitter.) Now that he owns Twitter, it’s also his chance to own the libs who have criticized and dared to mock him. He’s in a position to break their communities and drive them from online spaces where they’ve built networks and formed friendships.

Musk doesn’t want to destroy Twitter in the sense of rendering it a smoking ruin with a URL that leads to the abyss. But he does want to destroy Twitter to spite his enemies. Loosely defined, that means he wants to destroy it for everyone who questions the righteousness of a world ruled by white male billionaire tech bros.


Is Elon Musk evil or simply a fool?

 

Any evidence that he is doing anything like that?

 

I think his whole treatment of Twitter is trying to break what he saw as that community. The whole verification system aimed at the "lords of Twitters" (I think that was his term). That is how I have viewed it. From further in tehpiece:


Right-wing Twitter trolls have long used “blue checkmarks” as an insult to suggest that journalists, and especially left-wing journalists, are part of an out-of-touch, elite hive mind which wields unearned and unchecked (as it were) power. This confused analysis culminated in a evidence-free conspiracy theory that people were buying blue check marks for $20,000. (See this irate user making that claim, for example.)

Musk has bought into this framing. One of his first acts as owner was to promise to do away with the checkmark verification system in order to bring “power to the people”— that is, to the right-wing trolls who Musk sees as his friends and as the populist volk. Musk said that his Twitter Blue service would sell the verification badge for $8/month, and that he would remove “corrupt” legacy blue checks.

 

Yeah, this isn't a thread about DeSantis. It's about Musk. Markey attacked and threatened Musk. Which is why it's being discussed here. I don't care what Ron DeSantis has done as it relates to Markey and this thread. If you want to discuss DeSantis, take it somewhere else. This is about Ed Markey attacking and threatening a private citizen...over a tweet.

 

No. He's just a kid making up stuff on the internet.

 

then accept my apologies because I thought it was about elected representatives misusing the authority of their office to punish people they didn't like or agree with, regardless of party affiliation

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/11/14/twitter-fake-eli-lilly/


What a shit storm musk has created.


The nine-word tweet was sent Thursday afternoon from an account using the name and logo of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly and Co., and it immediately attracted a giant response: “We are excited to announce insulin is free now.”


The tweet carried a blue “verified” check mark, a badge that Twitter had used for years to signal an account’s authenticity — and that Twitter’s new billionaire owner, Elon Musk, had, while declaring “power to the people!” suddenly opened to anyone, regardless of their identity, as long as they paid $8.


But the tweet was a fake — one of what became a fast-multiplying horde of impersonated businesses, political leaders, government agencies and celebrities. By the time Twitter had removed the tweet, more than six hours later, the account had inspired other fake Eli Lilly copycats and been viewed millions of times.

 

I’m betting Twitter goes dark in the next two weeks as the crazy continues.

If I were a remaining employee with options I’d be out the door.

 

The irony is everyone talking about Twitter's demise, yet still attaching so much relevance and significance to tweets. If the platform is doomed, then who cares? Leave. If the blue checkmark is really an issue, Elon will either correct it or suffer the business consequences. It seems like so many people hate him, but they can't let go of Twitter.

And of course the point being is that people won't let go of Twitter, because it's the most efficient means to get a message out to the masses and there's no other app that comes close to it. It's so good, Musk can dick around with it for months and people will still be tweeting en masse. And let's be honest, Twitter is the best shitposting social media app in the history of mankind and people love to shitpost. You have the best reporters, celebrities, politicians, you name it. Until another app comes along that can rival what Twitter does, the people will still use Twitter. User count and activity are up.

 

And revenue is way down

 

I got a little over half right.

Who Said It: Elon Musk or Mr. Burns?