Musk has a long history of supporting Donald Trump and attacking liberals. He is also known for being a bit of a troll himself, and he’ll likely use his position as CEO of Twitter to make the site more friendly to trolls and hatemongers than it already is. This would be bad for advertisers and users alike, who would leave en masse in response to his actions.
Musk’s politics are shaped by a fondness for trolling and a hatred of wokeness, and he’s likely to make the site a better place for racist demagogues and conspiracy theorists.
In the past year, Musk has demonstrated his commitment to trolling Twitter users. He has engaged in a long-running war of words with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which investigated him for fraud after he tweeted that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla private at $420 per share. The SEC sued Musk and Tesla, alleging securities fraud and seeking to bar Musk from serving as an officer or director of a public company.
In the past few years alone, Musk has demonstrated his commitment to trolling Twitter users:
When he made fun of a guy who accused him of being a pedophile
When he trolled an athlete who asked him for help with his basketball skills
When he dissed a critic by suggesting that they get together and fight over Twitter
When he told a guy with a “ponytail” that he should cut it off because it’s just not cool anymore
Musk also got into a spat on Twitter with British diver Vernon Unsworth, who helped rescue 12 Thai boys trapped in a cave last year. Unsworth said Musk should stick his submarine where it hurts, which seemed like an odd thing to say about a rescue device designed to help children. Musk then doubled down on his insults, saying that Unsworth was a pedophile and claimed that Unsworth had “never actually done anything useful & unlikely ever will.”
More recently, he attacked journalists who questioned his relationship with Saudi Arabia by describing them as “short sellers working at Morgan Stanley & Goldman Sachs who are desperate for me not to have long TSLA stock options that make their lives more difficult; they collectively own $5Bn in TSLA short positions!”
In another tweet the Tesla CEO said he plans to destroy Twitter by making it into a “no-holds-barred platform” that allows free speech.
Musk is likely referring to the rules that protect minorities from abuse, women from threats of rape and violence, and the platform safe for children—rules which will be hard to apply if he wants people like Alex Jones on board. He has already promised to fire all the content moderators who police anti-semitism and racism.
Musk has promised to remove the suspension of Donald Trump. He has also promised to reinstate Parler, the GOP-friendly microblogging site that was banned after playing host to users who encouraged the rioters at the US Capitol on January 6.
Twitter is also home to its share of Nazis and white supremacists, who rely on the platform as a megaphone for their hateful messages. Musk vows to protect them. In a series of tweets Musk vowed to “protect” Twitter users who engage in “meaningful” political speech from being banned by the platform.
Musk also has defended Alex Jones’ presence on social media — even though he believes that “the vast majority” of what Jones says is wrong or offensive. But he thinks that it’s important to protect people like him because they provide “an important perspective.” Not sure what perspective he means?
So far, Twitter has not bowed to demands from foreign political figures, including former President Trump himself, to censor or suspend individual accounts—particularly those belonging to activists and journalists abroad. Musk will likely listen to foreign governments like China to protect his other business interests.
Musk has been vocal about his support for Donald Trump, but he also supports the authoritarian government of China and its president Xi Jinping. In fact, Musk’s electric car company Tesla is working with Chinese officials on an “independent” factory in Shanghai that would produce 500,000 cars annually—more than any other facility in the world.
Musk has always viewed Twitter as a platform for publishing his ideas and opinions, but advertisers will flee because their brands will no longer be protected.
Elon Musk’s plan to bring back all the dead Twitter users is going over like a lead balloon with advertisers.
Advertisers have already seen the backlash to Kanye West, a friend of Musk when he went after Jews in rant after bigoted rant. This is just the beginning of what could become an exodus of sponsors from Twitter if Musk’s plan comes together.
“We are monitoring the situation closely,” said an executive at OMD to Adotat anonymously. “If it turns out that we have no choice but to stop advertising on Twitter, then we will do so.”
The executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly on behalf of his company, added: “I think most advertisers would prefer not to be associated with this kind of thing.”
Musk wants to fill the site with fake news, lies, conspiracy theories and any other garbage he can think of.
So what does Musk think his plan will accomplish? “Mmore content will increase the number of visitors, which in turn increases our ad revenue,” he is reported to have told investors.
Musk’s plan may sound like a great idea at first glance (who doesn’t love free content?) but it becomes pretty obvious that he’s just trying to make money off other people’s work by flooding Twitter with lies and misinformation. It’s not hard to imagine how quickly this could destroy the trustworthiness of Twitter as a source for news — if you’ve ever seen an article about how Obama was born outside the US or how climate change isn’t real, you know what I’m talking about.
Musk’s plan is simple: make it unbearable for anyone but the most extreme right-wing conspiracy theorists. It’s already begun: when you follow Musk on Twitter you are suddenly bombarded with fake news and lies from accounts that look like they’re run by bots or teenagers in Macedonia. And that’s just what I’ve seen so far; imagine if he really commits himself to destroying Twitter!
Musk may very well accomplish his goal of destroying Twitter. But hopefuly he won’t be able to get rid of the platform altogether because it still has millions of users who actually use it for its intended purpose — communicating with others in real-time about important things going on in their lives or around the world. And those users deserve better than having their experience ruined by trolls and hatemongers who use the platform to intimidate people into silence.
Twitter is a great place for Musk’s followers to find him, but it must be kept free from trolls and hatemongers. If Musk takes over the site then he will likely protect Trump, Racists, Hatemongers, as well as Chinese leaders who want to censor content on Twitter in order to protect their own interests.
