The Tesla CEO initially tried to walk away from a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, but after the company filed a lawsuit, he reversed course and walked into the company’s San Francisco headquarters with a sink in hand — “let that sink in” was the internet meme he was aiming for.
Focusing on “free speech,” Musk announced he was removing the ability to report misleading posts and scrapping the company’s policy on coronavirus misinformation.
The billionaire also introduced a paid service called “Twitter Blue,” which allows users to buy a blue checkmark to “verify” the identity of brands and people, in exchange for paying money and receiving preferential treatment in the algorithm.
The move, which Musk touted as a move towards equality, opened the door to impersonations of news outlets, brands and celebrities, sparking backlash from some high-profile figures.
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LeBron James, considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time, announced that he will no longer be paying for the blue check mark, as will best-selling author Stephen King.
As many pointed out at the time, James has a lifetime deal with Nike worth $1 billion, and King has sold over 400 million books worldwide, many of which have been made into movies. The fact that they and others like them can use Twitter for free is a blessing in itself, and there’s no point in them demanding money for the privilege. In fact, King quipped, “Fuck it, they should pay.”
Both accounts have blue checkmarks that were passive-aggressively “gifted” by Musk, following the decision made in April this year to automatically give the checkmark to accounts with over 2,500 paid followers, meaning big celebrity accounts are guaranteed to get the checkmark by default.
The company claims to have achieved record engagement since the acquisition, but analysis suggests things aren’t going well.
Some of the world’s major soccer leagues, including the Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga and Serie A, have written to the company calling it a “hotbed of illegal social media piracy” and accusing it of “continued failures” to protect their intellectual property.
In the United States, active users are reported to have fallen 13% over the past 12 months. Musk claims a “monthly user” base of 54 million, although it is estimated that less than 1 million of them were subscribers to Twitter Premium (a rebranding of Twitter Blue) as of August 2013.
(Image: PA)
That’s a problem for the company because paying users were meant to fill the gap left by advertisers wary of the new regime’s looser approach to moderation.
In 2017, YouTube creators and the platform itself suffered what was called the “advertising collapse,” when brands en masse pulled their funding following a number of incidents of their ads appearing on the channels of far-right agitators.
New opt-outs were introduced for categories like “sensitive social issues” and “sensational/shocking,” which in practice meant that simply mentioning something like the Holocaust as part of an educational video about World War II was tantamount to denying that the Holocaust actually happened, and the video would be demonetized.
While the issue appears to have been somewhat remedied, Musk doesn’t seem to have learned his lesson.
Twitter has reinstated previously banned accounts including white supremacists Richard Spencer and Stephen Molyneux, far-right activists Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins, and, most notably, former President Donald Trump.
Musk himself said, “The Jewish community [sic] By saying, “You told the real truth,” they have imposed the exact same kind of dialectical white hatred that they are arguing people should stop using against them.
Advertisers including Airbnb, Microsoft and Coca-Cola have halted ad spending, along with Apple, IBM, Disney and Sony.
Rather than enforce stricter moderation, Musk went to court.
On August 6, 𝕏 filed a lawsuit against the Global Alliance for Responsible Media, the Global Federation of Advertisers, and four companies – Ørsted, CVS Health, Unilever, and Mars – for conspiring to boycott the platform.
The move was announced in a frankly bizarre video by CEO Linda Yaccarino, in which she declared: “People get hurt when the marketplace of ideas is restricted. A few people should not be able to monopolize what gets monetized.”
Message to X users pic.twitter.com/6bZOYPhWVa
— Linda Yaccarino (@lindayaX) August 6, 2024
It’s unclear how this squares with 𝕏’s policy of promoting content from premium paying users over those who haven’t purchased the blue checkmark, allowing them to monetize only that content.
One would imagine that the first line of defense for those involved would be Musk’s own words.
When asked about advertising in an interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin, the billionaire responded: “Stop advertising. Stop advertising. What if someone tries to blackmail me with money? What if they blackmail me with advertising? Fuck me. Fuck me.”
This will likely be condemned as “unwise” by all but his online supporters, who consider him a real-life Tony Stark. One memorable tweet suggested that if Musk slammed his limbs into a car door, fans would respond with “nice ploy.”
Elon Musk: *slams penis into car door*
Musk fan: That’s a brilliant strategy.
— Timmy C (@EsqTim) July 13, 2022
Not that South African entrepreneurs are so bullish on everyone.
When American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift announced the release of “1989 (Taylor’s Version),” Musk tweeted to her account, “𝕏Encourage you to post your music and concert videos directly to the platform.”
Swift did not follow this recommendation and instead released a concert film from her “Eras Tour” in theaters and later on Disney+, which grossed nearly $300 million.
(Image: Vue)
Musk also said he found it “very disappointing” that comedian Russell Brand, who has been accused of rape, assault and emotional abuse, was promoting the rival Rumble.
And then, of course, there was her long-running courtship of President Trump.
The former Apprentice host had his account suspended following the January 6 riots, but it was reinstated by Musk in November 2022.
But Trump has steadfastly refused to return to the platform, insisting he is happy with his own app, Truth Social.
The former president has previously harshly criticized Tesla’s CEO, calling him a “bullshit man.”
In 2022, he wrote in Truth Social, “When Elon Musk came to the White House and asked me for help with his many subsidized projects — low-range electric cars, self-driving cars that crash, rockets that go nowhere — that would be worthless without the subsidies, and told me how he was a huge Trump fan and Republican, I could have said, ‘Get on your knees and beg,’ and he would have done so.”
Musk was certainly servile, if not kneeling, as he finally welcomed the man he hopes to return to the White House in November to the stage for a live interview on Monday night. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing.
Live audio platform Spaces crashed as hundreds of thousands of people tried to tune in to chat, and users were unable to log in for nearly an hour. Musk blamed it on a DDOS attack, but company staff said that was a lie.
This followed similar issues that affected the May campaign launch of one of Trump’s campaign rivals, Ron DeSantis. At the time, the former president wrote, “Wow! DeSantis’ Twitter launch is a disaster! His entire campaign is going to be a disaster. Watch out!”
While it may have been successful in bringing Trump back to the platform, lax moderation and Musk’s own behavior are scaring many away.
During the far-right riots that spread across the UK, the billionaire made multiple references to a “civil war” and retweeted a post claiming Keir Starmer was setting up “concentration camps” in the Falkland Islands.
The co-leader of the far-right party Britain First, who is sharing the fake Telegraph headline, simply tweeted Elon Musk’s quote.
Approximately 1 million people watched in 15 minutes
Totally dystopian pic.twitter.com/4W5ZOssbEY
— Josh Self (@Josh_Self_) August 8, 2024
𝕏 The algorithm is reportedly designed to boost its owner’s posts as a response to their failure to achieve high engagement during the Super Bowl.
Musk frequently responds to accounts like Libs Of Tik Tok, Catturd, and End Wokeness, often with just an exclamation point, which is enough to get their posts featured in millions of feeds.
An out-of-context video of former prime minister Humza Yousaf talking about the need for diversity in senior positions in the public sector, government and trade unions was picked up by far-right figures and spread by Musk, who called Yousaf a “super super racist” and claimed he “hates white people.”
Advertisers and users are fleeing, and the fate of the social media site formerly known as Twitter remains unclear.
Musk has said he wants the platform to be “the app for everything”, but it is only the 12th most used social media site in the world, behind Facebook, YouTube and Instagram, and ahead of TikTok, Snapchat and Telegram.
Under Musk, it seems likely to become the next Myspace or Bebo, whatever its owner’s die-hard fans would have you believe.