OotL: What happened with Elon Musk? And Twitter?

Ages ago Elon Musk used to be positively regarded by most people. I missed everything that happened that changed the public opinion, I missed the changes he imposed on Twitter (though I gather it’s the same as it happened with reddit, only earlier) and yeah. I’m out of the loop. If someone can briefly recap the main events I’d be grateful.

For me, things went like this: Pre-pandemic, everybody wants to own a tesla ev, Elon is smoking pot with Joe Rogan and the world is cheering. Then the pandemic hits. Then the pandemic lifts. Then in 2023 all of a sudden everyone online saying he’s awful, a blood emerald hoarder, destroyer of twitter, tesla stinks, etc etc. Did it all happen overnight? Was there a main trigger event or was it a gradual thing? What, exactly happened to twitter after his takeover- is reddit truly a by-the-book carbon copy of his decisions with API changes?

I’ve been living under a rock.

BitingChaos,
@BitingChaos@lemmy.world avatar

I know this is an old post, but anyone that knows anything about Elon has known that he’s always been a big asshole.

It’s been nearly SIX YEARS since he started the weird name-calling online (calling someone a pedo). He’s only been ramping up the idiocy since, with it really going into overdrive during the pandemic.

The period from six years ago to three years ago he was mostly a meme. “What wacky shit will Elon post this time?” is what people thought. He became more common in the public’s eyes. It didn’t mean people actually liked him or that he was a cool dude.

He’s gone down hill more the past three years, and especially the last one year.

He posts stuff like “lock Fauci up” and conspiracies and other right-wing / Qanon shit. Giving a platform to right-wing / Qanon / nazi idiots. He’s destroying twitter, chasing away advertisers and normal people, and welcoming human garbage. Don’t you recall all the fuck Spez / reddit drama, where they kicked off 3rd-party apps? Elon did the same thing with Twitter.

BrudderAaron,
@BrudderAaron@lemmy.world avatar

Don’t forget about making twitter as user unfriendly as possible with anyone being able to buy verification and now putting a pathetically small limit on posts you can view per day. Also if you don’t have an account, good luck even going to the site because Elon does NOT want you to see posts without giving him the account creation data!

tonamel,

There was a popular tweet that went around for a bit, that said something along the lines of "When Musk started SpaceX and people called him a genius, I believed them because I don't know anything about how space programs work. When people said he was a genius for his work at Tesla, I believed them because I don't know anything about cars. Now he owns Twitter, and I know programming and the things he's doing are the dumbest things I've ever seen, which makes me think twice about his space program and cars."

Basically, he managed to get followers because he focused on niche technology and hey, he's rich so he must know what he's doing. But then he started saying things more and more publicly, culminating with the takeover and ruination of Twitter, and people finally saw him for who he actually is, because he was in control of something that affected them directly, and handling it terribly.

ImplyingImplications,

Musk has always been this way but was never really in the public eye so people only knew him as the mega rich dude that made futuristic stuff. The fame went to his head and now he won’t shut the hell up and his mouth has got him in a lot of trouble.

Did it all happen overnight? Was there a main trigger event or was it a gradual thing?

Most people point to Musk’s tweet calling a rescue diver who saved several children from a flooded cave a “pedo” for turning down his submarine idea. The idea was dumb and calling the guy who just rescued the lives of several children a “pedo” was incredibly bad taste. It was the first inkling that Musk might not be a Tony Stark styled billionaire genius and might just be a rich asshole.

What, exactly happened to twitter after his takeover

Firstly, Musk was forced to purchase Twitter or face a massive fine for stock market manipulation. I don’t think he ever actually wanted to purchase Twitter, but Musk has a habit of thinking the rules don’t apply to him because he has money.

After the purchase went through he essentially became the King of Twitter and made so many terrible decisions I can’t be bothered to list them all here. Just know that he once tweeted that he was walking around Twitter HQ and randomly unplugging servers to see what would happen and also got into arguments over Twitter about how Twitter’s systems work…with Twitter’s lead engineers…and then fired them for disagreeing with him…even though he was wrong. Oh he also said posting hate speech was fine.

is reddit truly a by-the-book carbon copy of his decisions with API changes?

In an interview, the Reddit CEO has stated that he’s using Musk’s Twitter decisions as a model for how to run Reddit. Which is terrible considering Twitter’s value has plummeted by tens of billions of dollars since Musk took over and has gotten in trouble with major advertisers as well as government organizations for being filled with hate speech, misinformation, and propaganda.

Dettweiler42,

On the note of purchasing Twitter, he made a formal offer and entered into a purchase contract with the company. He tried to back out when the closing date got close, and Twitter had to sue him to complete the contract after all the damage he had done during the buying process.

EliasChao,

He also waived his right to do due diligence, which fucked him when he was trying to avoid proceeding with the buyout claiming Twitter has inflated number of users.

Mothra,
@Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

Thanks for the reply!

bappity,
@bappity@lemmy.world avatar

  • He made some rather unsavoury remarks to a British cave diver “Vernon Unsworth” on Twitter after Unsworth criticized his proposal to rescue the trapped Thai soccer team with a mini-submarine.
    https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/5025e693-1160-4a0c-98e3-19fd5f940bf7.png(tweet above now deleted)

  • He has a trans daughter that applied to change her name and gender and reportedly said she wanted nothing to do with him… In my opinion, for her to have backed out of a chance of inheriting a lot of money, they must’ve had a pretty bad relationship. He’s posted stuff like “pronouns suck” on twitter and rolled back a policy protecting trans users from misgendering/deadnaming.

  • He mocked a disabled former Twitter employee, Haraldur Thorleifsson, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, in a series of tweets on March 7, 2023 Thorleifsson had tweeted at Musk to ask if he was still employed at Twitter, after he lost access to his work computer along with 200 others. Musk accused him of doing no actual work, claiming a disability that prevented him from typing, and seeking a big payout 2 He also posted emojis and a link to a scene from Office Space to ridicule him.

  • Most recently he locked access to twitter unless you have an account and are logged into it and also added rate limits to the amount of posts you’re allowed to read per day.

    apologies for the mix of news site sources and if my text is a bit too long/nonsensical at points, can’t guarantee the credibility of the sites and I never post stuff this long. these are just some of the things he’s done to piss people off.

mephiska,

Don’t forget most recently tweeted “cisgender is a slur”.

bappity,
@bappity@lemmy.world avatar

oh god how could I forget… the guy is an all round joke of a human being.

Mothra,
@Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

Okay that’s impressive. So basically the same brand of wealth and social filters Trump has. Perhaps worse, I’m not sure. Far out

Jo,
@Jo@readit.buzz avatar

He mocked a disabled former Twitter employee, Haraldur Thorleifsson, who has muscular dystrophy and uses a wheelchair, in a series of tweets on March 7, 2023 Thorleifsson had tweeted at Musk to ask if he was still employed at Twitter, after he lost access to his work computer along with 200 others. Musk accused him of doing no actual work, claiming a disability that prevented him from typing, and seeking a big payout 2 He also posted emojis and a link to a scene from Office Space to ridicule him.

Just to add to this, Thorleifsson had sold his company to Twitter but taken the payout as a salaried job so that he paid full taxes on it. The big payout if Musk sacked him was part of the deal to buy the company. Musk is willfully ignorant for every possible meaning of the term.

confluence,

Elon was for many years socially liberal and fiscally conservative, but he’s shifting to social conservative views.

When his money started getting touched by law and democratic oversight, he was helped by conservative politicians. One of his tweets got him fired as the Tesla CEO, and he’s been bitching about the SEC ever since (his tweet misrepresented something and he made a lot of profit from it).

He didn’t end up wanting to buy Twitter after promising he would, and he seemed stuck and frustrated. The GOP was also frustrated by the community standards of Twitter. Then Robert Murdoch spends the Superbowl in a private box with Elon, and suddenly Elon’s got the money to buy Twitter, the GOP is being given a loud voice to push misinformation, the Republicans are going after the SEC on Elon’s behalf, and signing bills that unequally benefit Elon’s profits. In exchange, the GOP has an incredible propaganda machine.

These are the individual data I’m noticing, and if my narrative can be disputed by some datum, please let me know.

Mothra,
@Mothra@mander.xyz avatar

I see. I’m starting to put together the pieces of the puzzle. Not a pretty picture wow

Zaphodquixote,
@Zaphodquixote@sh.itjust.works avatar

He did a heel turn.

He bought twitter after trying to wiggle out of the deal and then ruined it, decided to go full right wing crazy, and consistently keeps trying to pretend he’s not an idiot with a lot of money.

fne8w2ah,

IIRC Musk was never really that serious about purchasing, let alone actually running Twitter, until those lawsuits and fines that would have resulted in him backing out of the Twitter deal at the last minute were literally hanging over his head.

acquiescence,

Don’t have the source with me now, I’ll link it tomorrow if I remember, but there were people trapped in some underwater cave. Musk proposed a silly way to rescue, one of the members leading the rescue rejected his idea, and musk called him a pedophile in retaliation. His true colours showed from there.

He apparently had some sort of affair with Amber heard while she was still with Depp too.

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