Why do that? When I wrote about Musk’s tweet this early year, I’m inclined to suggest that it was Twitter that led him into this 280-character venture. I have described Twitter as a highway from your feet to your mouth. But now that he owns the company, it’s gotten worse and seems more intentional. Musk appears to have programmed his Tesla navigation system to launch straight into his own babbling trap. The definitive answer to why he’s doing this is only accessible inside the big brain of the man who rules Tesla, SpaceX, brain transplant and tunneling startups, and now even Twitter. I can’t ask Twitter for comment because Musk fired his PR team. The people around Musk that I surveyed also did not give an answer. The only response I got was from his friend and OpenAI co-founder, Sam Altman. “I really don’t know,” Altman said.
One of Musk’s representatives addressed the tweets: Joe Lonsdale, an investor and Palantir co-founder who knows Musk and is rumored to be advise him on Twitter to the rescue. As a recent guest on CNBC, Lonsdale talked about how “fantastic possibilities” are for Musk and Twitter. But when host Andrew Ross Sorkin brought up Markey’s tweet, he had the same worries as me. “I do not understand it!” Sorkin said. “Democrats control the Senate, that guy runs several committees — with no more subpoena power! … Isn’t he putting himself at some kind of real risk?”
Lonsdale defended his friend by saying the tweets demonstrated “how important it is for Elon to win”. It is about freedom. “In China, if you do that, you will definitely be disqualified,” said Lonsdale, gesturing like a Maoist executioner. “It is proving to everyone that we can have a free country and you can push back, you can mock those who are attacking you and you can still win. And that’s great! He said we were free and I wouldn’t consider this a Communist dictatorship.”
That comment would have had a better basis if Musk hadn’t at the time public dismissal—and then mocked—any employee who dared to post anything about this was more of a criticism than a knee-jerk at his greatness. Since Twitter CEO Musk is leading a dictator class, I reject the Lonsdale Theory.
Another theory is that Musk has lost his mind. Therefore, we should consider all his actions on his Twitter as like a queue dementia. That didn’t work either. Are these troublesome tweets new behavior. Remember 2018, when I had to recklessly call someone to take the Thai children out of the cave a “prostitute guy”? musk wins defamation lawsuit the rescuer filed a lawsuit against him, but had to pay the price with distraction and reputation for his gratuitous defamation. And keep going. Or at the same time that same year when he tweeted, “I was considering buying a Tesla at $420. Funding is guaranteed.” Turns out funding is not guaranteed. Also, there was confusion as to whether the tweet was a joke, as April 20 is called weed day, a time to burn a fat spliff. In any case, the US Securities and Exchange Commission was not amused. Musk and Tesla both had to pay $20 million to agency complaint handling, and Musk had to step down as chairman of Tesla. But outside of Twitter, Musk shows no signs of madness. Since those 2018 tweets, he’s done a pretty good job running Tesla and SpaceX, so one could assume he’s no longer a madman. Just crazy in his tweets.
