Musk’s past tweets reveal clues about Twitter’s new owner

He may be good at rockets and electric cars, but don’t turn to Elon Musk for public health predictions.

The richest man in the world tweeted about COVID-19 in March 2020, there may well have been almost no new cases in the US by the end of April, just as the pandemic was intensifying.

It’s one of many tweets provide a glimpse mind of the new owner of Twitter and chief executive officer. Playful, belligerent, and sometimes reckless, Musk’s past tweets show how he’s used social media to advertise his business, hit back at critics, and polish his brand like a lousy billionaire who Don’t be afraid to speak your mind.

Musk joined Twitter in 2009 and now has more than 112 million followers – the third-most of any account after former president Barack Obama and Canadian singer Justin Bieber. He thought long and hard about buying the platform before $ 44 billion deals completed last week.

Musk didn’t detail the changes he plans to make at Twitter, though he wasted no time. implementation of widespread layoffs. But he said he wanted to make Twitter a paradise for freedom of speech. He said he disagreed with the platform’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump for inciting violence before the January 6, 2021 attack on the US Capitol.

“I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that’s what free speech means,” Musk tweeted earlier this year when he announced his intention to buy the platform. this.

As CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk uses his Twitter account to make business announcements and promote his business. He mused about technology and commerce, but also posted jokes about women’s breasts and once compared the Canadian prime minister to Hitler. He regularly weighs in on global events, as he did in March 2020 when he tweeted that “Coronavirus pandemic is stupid.”

That same month, he tweeted that children were largely immune to the virus and predicted that cases would soon disappear.

Musk has also used his Twitter account to weigh in on other major news events – with mixed results.

This fall, Musk angered leaders in Ukraine by taking to Twitter to pitch a potential peace deal. Under Musk’s plan, Russia would keep Crimea, which it took from Ukraine in 2014, and Ukraine would have to abandon its plans to join NATO.

Musk also suggested that people living in other regions illegally annexed by Russia should vote on whether Russia or Ukraine should take control of the territories – a move that Ukraine’s supporters say will reward Russia for its illegal act of aggression.

Paul Barrett, a disinformation researcher and associate director of New York University’s Stern Center for Business and Human Rights.

Stern points to Musk’s comments about Ukraine as particularly concerning. “This isn’t going to be pretty,” he said.

Just days after buying Twitter, Musk plunged into another firestorm when he posted a link to an article promoting a strange conspiracy theory about the attack on the husband of US Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The article suggested that Paul Pelosi and his attacker were lovers, although authorities said the suspect confessed to targeting the speaker and did not know her husband.

Musk later deleted the tweet without explanation.

Musk has long used the megaphone on his Twitter account to punch back critics or those he opposes, such as when he attacked a diver working to rescue trapped boys. trapped in a cave in Thailand by calling him “pedo”, short for pedophile. The diver had previously mocked Musk’s suggestion to use sub to rescue the boys. Musk, who won a defamation lawsuit filed by a diver, later said he never intended to interpret “pedo” as “pedophile”.

Three days before Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter, the richest man in the world tweeted a photo of Bill Gates and used a sexually vulgar term while joking about his belly.

Earlier this year, he criticized the Twitter executive in charge of the platform’s legal, policy and fiduciary departments. In response to his tweets about the chief executive, many of Musk’s followers poured into the false and racist attacks, alongside calls for Musk to fire her as the Twitter purchase His is approved.

Musk fired the chief executive on day one.

Musk’s use of Twitter sometimes leads to problems for his own company. For instance, in a tweet in August 2018, Musk asserted that he had enough money to buy Tesla privately for $420 a share, even though a court ruled that wasn’t true. That led to an SEC investigation that Musk was still fighting.

Last year, another federal agency, the National Labor Relations Board, ordered Musk to delete a tweet that officials said they were illegally threatened with cutting. stock options for Tesla employees who have joined the United Auto Workers union.

Those tweets helped cement Musk’s reputation as an outsider. But that doesn’t mean he’s equipped to run a social media platform with more than 200 million users, said Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse University professor who studies social media. Grygiel designated Musk’s tweets as reading material for students.

“Look at the feed: It’s all over the place. It’s erratic. Sometimes it’s pretty extreme,” Grygiel said. “It paints him as some kind of rebel leader who will take control of the public square to save it. It’s a legend he’s built.”

© 2022 The Associated Press. Copyright Registered. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.