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He could also be good with rockets and electrical automobiles, however don’t flip to Elon Musk for public well being predictions.
“Most likely near zero new instances in US too by finish of April,” the world’s richest man tweeted about COVID-19 in March 2020, simply because the pandemic was ramping up.
It’s considered one of many tweets that supply a glimpse into the thoughts of Twitter’s new proprietor and moderator in chief. Playful, aggressive and typically reckless, Musk’s previous tweets present how he has used social media to tout his companies, punch again at critics and burnish his model as a brash billionaire who’s unafraid to talk his thoughts.
Musk joined Twitter in 2009 and now has greater than 112 million followers — the third most of any account after former president Barack Obama and Canadian singer Justin Bieber. He had lengthy mused about buying the platform earlier than the $ 44 billion deal was finalized final week.
Musk hasn’t detailed the modifications he intends to make at Twitter, although he wasted no time in making widespread layoffs. However he has mentioned he needs to make Twitter a haven at no cost speech. He’s mentioned he disagrees with the platform’s resolution to ban ex-President Donald Trump for inciting violence forward of the Jan. 6, 2021 assault on the U.S. Capitol.
“I hope that even my worst critics stay on Twitter, as a result of that’s what free speech means,” Musk tweeted earlier this yr when he introduced his intention to purchase the platform.
Because the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Musk makes use of his Twitter account to make enterprise bulletins and promote his enterprises. He muses about expertise and commerce, however has additionally posted jokes about ladies’s breasts and as soon as in contrast Canada’s prime minister to Hitler. He repeatedly weighs in on international occasions, as he did in March 2020 when he tweeted that “The coronavirus pandemic is dumb.”
That very same month, he tweeted that kids had been largely immune from the virus and predicted that instances would quickly disappear.
Musk has additionally used his Twitter account to weigh in different massive information occasions — with combined outcomes.
This fall, Musk infuriated leaders in Ukraine when he went on Twitter to drift a possible peace deal. Underneath Musk’s plan, Russia would get to maintain Crimea, which it seized from Ukraine in 2014, and Ukraine must drop its plans to affix NATO.
Musk additionally instructed that individuals residing in different areas illegally annexed by Russia ought to vote on whether or not Russia or Ukraine ought to get management over the territories — a transfer that Ukraine supporters mentioned would reward Russia for its unlawful aggression.
“The hazard right here is that within the identify of ‘free speech,’ Musk will flip again the clock and make Twitter right into a stronger engine of hatred, divisiveness, and misinformation,” mentioned Paul Barrett, a disinformation researcher and the deputy director of New York College’s Stern Middle for Enterprise and Human Rights.
Stern singled out Musk’s feedback about Ukraine as notably regarding. “This isn’t going to be fairly,” he mentioned.
Simply days after buying Twitter Musk waded into yet one more firestorm when he posted a hyperlink to an article advancing a weird conspiracy concept concerning the assault on the husband of U.S. Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The article instructed that Paul Pelosi and his assailant had been lovers, despite the fact that authorities mentioned the suspect confessed to concentrating on the speaker and didn’t know her husband.
Musk later deleted the tweet with out rationalization.
Musk has lengthy used the megaphone of his Twitter account to punch again at critics or folks he opposes, similar to when he attacked a diver working to rescue boys trapped in a collapse Thailand by calling him a “pedo,” brief for pedophile. The diver had beforehand mocked Musk’s proposal to make use of a sub to rescue the boys. Musk, who received a defamation swimsuit filed by the diver, later mentioned he by no means meant “pedo” to be interpreted as “pedophile.”
Three days earlier than Elon Musk agreed to purchase Twitter, the world’s richest man tweeted a photograph of Invoice Gates and used a crude sexual time period whereas making a joke about his stomach.
Earlier this yr he criticized the Twitter govt in control of the platform’s authorized, coverage and belief divisions. In response to his tweets concerning the govt, lots of Musk’s followers piled on with misogynistic and racist assaults, along with requires Musk to fireside her when his buy of Twitter was permitted.
Musk fired the manager on day one.
Musk’s use of Twitter has at occasions led to issues for his personal corporations. In a single August 2018 tweet, as an illustration, Musk asserted that he had the funding to take Tesla non-public for $420 a share, though a courtroom has dominated that it wasn’t true. That led to an SEC investigation that Musk remains to be preventing.
Final yr one other federal company, the Nationwide Labor Relations Board, ordered Musk to delete a tweet that officers mentioned illegally threatened to chop inventory choices for Tesla workers who joined the United Auto Staff union.
These tweets helped cement Musk’s status as a brash outsider. However that doesn’t imply he’s geared up to run a social media platform with greater than 200 million customers, mentioned Jennifer Grygiel, a Syracuse College professor who research social media. Grygiel has assigned Musk’s tweets as studying materials for college kids.
“Take a look at the feed: It’s all over. It’s erratic. At occasions it’s fairly excessive,” Grygiel mentioned. “It paints him as some form of insurgent chief who will take management of the general public sq. to reserve it. That could be a delusion he has constructed.”
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