Elon Musk and Donald Trump have been compared before and generally not in the most favorable terms, although granted, Musk has actually been a captain of industry, helming some fascinating projects and Trump has merely figured out how to keep grifting and bankrupting in ever widening circles. From the front page of the New York tabloids to the Oval Office is one hell of a journey, you have to admit that.
Likewise, Elon Musk, who has been called the Discount Howard Hughes, has become involved in everything from cutting edge automotive technology to space travel. He’s the world’s richest man and now he is the owner — and sole member of the board — of Twitter, the third largest social media platform on the planet.
This is where it starts to go into dystopian sci fi. Owning and more importantly managing Twitter gives Musk an incredibly oversized voice, as we unfortunately saw over the weekend when he tweeted a vulgar conspiracy theory about Paul Pelosi and then thought better of it and deleted the tweet.
But the damage was done. The tweet got retweeted something like 110 million times and it became its own news story.
Let us pause and analyze that tweet for a few moments, because one thing Musk did was prove how very much like Trump he is, and especially in his tweeting style. And you know where Trump’s tweeting style got us. Here’s Jonathan Last’s take on it.
“There is a tiny possibility there might be more to this story than meets the eye.”
So. Many. Modifiers.
Who knows what Musk was actually saying! He didn’t say that Paul Pelosi was attacked by a crazed, gay Antifa socialist.
He merely pointed out that there was a mathematical chance of one event (“there is a tiny possibility”) in which there is another mathematical chance of a second event (“there might be”) in which exists some alternate explanation for the available set of facts.
Musk is so distanced from making an actual accusation that he’s barely even Just Asking Questions.
You know who else talks like this?
Some time ago Keri Mangis wrote a detailed explanation of Trump’s literary style, which breaks down the shitpost as a mode of communication. The key elements are the use of:
- Passive voice
- Metaphor instead of literal language
- Superlative modifiers
- Opt-out clauses (such as “maybe” or “I don’t know” or “some people say”)
Trump does them all. And Musk is now working the same corner.
I find that sobering. I also find it sobering that the old Twitter board is gone and Musk is apparently winging it. This also happened earlier.
In one of his first moves at Twitter, Elon Musk is moving to charge users $20 per month to be verified on the social media platform, The Verge reported.
- Twitter employees have until Nov. 7 to launch the new subscription feature, or they will be fired, Musk reportedly told the staff on Sunday.
- Users who are already verified will have 90 days to subscribe or lose their blue checkmarks.
Musk tweeted on Sunday that “the whole verification process is being revamped right now.”
The reported move to charge for blue checkmarks drew widespread criticism among users.
Two major concerns keep getting articulated and nobody has any answers to either. The first is that Musk’s online Twitter persona has been described as that of a shitposting teenager. Secondly, next to Musk the Saudis are the largest shareholders.
Both are true and what those facts might mean, your guess is as good as mine.
It’s been said, and rightfully so, that most people who say they want free speech actually just want to be the one in charge of deciding which speech is free.
In the past few days Stew Peters and Nick Fuentes tried to get back on Twitter and were denied. But maybe they will be allowed back on eventually. And of course the burning question is will Trump be allowed back on? Nobody knows.
The worse case scenario as I see it is that Twitter will become a safe space for insurrectionists, bigots, fascists, misogynists and religious lunatics to gather together and ferment their heady brews of conspiracy theories, election denying and let’s face it, assassination plots.
An even worse case scenario which I never envisioned occurred this weekend when a failed assassination plot instead became a vulgar right-wing media fueled conspiracy theory. And that was caused by the owner of Twitter himself, Elon Musk.
If this isn’t dystopia, it will do until the real thing comes along. Twitter may well become the modern day Tower of Babel. It may already be there.
To be fair, he does label himself as chief twit, at least that’s accurate.
I wonder how long it will be before Chief TWIT Musk starts using:
“People say…”
“Some have said…”
“I’ve heard…”
And other such BULLSHIT! I swear it’s like the old days (I’m in my mid-sixties) of Championship Wrestling, the minor league stuff with the comically bad play acting. With antics like a ref being “distracted” while an offender’s manager or tag team partner hit’s someone with a chair, and then does the “What? Me? I didn’t do anything!” bullshit. Or the referee himself, (which in this case is Musk – quite literally) allowing himself to be distracted by a manager complaining of abuse to his wrestler and REFUSING to turn his head to look, no matter how loudly the good guy’s manager points and shouts and the crowd joins in PLEADING with the ref to turn around and fucking look! But he never would of course. It was all part of the pretend, to make for an outrageous show – and the shit worked because people showed up at the events and watched on TV!
I suspect that’s what we’ve got in store from Musk. Being an old school Championship Wrestling Referee from the old days when so many people watched telecasts on black and white TVs. He’ll know damned good and well what’s going on but will refuse to look – and loudly protest he didn’t see it happening because he was too busy dealing with people complaining to him! As long as he’s making money he won’t give a fuck who gets hurt either figuratively or literally. Even when people get killed.
The ONLY thing that will rein him in at least some is losing money – if lots of people who just blathered about where they ate dinner, or what happened at the office or other stuff say “fuckit” and leave AND major advertisers see enough rise in hate speech and a rise in violence and stop buying ads. That will get his attention. GM and Ford pausing their ads to see how Musk will do things is probably why he quickly delited that vile tweet of his. But they will have to stick to their positions and others will have to join in to make it actually hurt twitter and Musk. Frankly, I have doubts that will happen. Most of these corporate types swore they were done donating to Republicans unless/until they denounced the Big Lie – but they’ve quietly gone back to giving money to the asshat candidates!
Love how the great advocate of “free speech” wants to charge people $240 a year for the privilege of exercising their “free speech.”
Or is that money just so they can be “verified accounts?” I wonder what the rate will be for the bots and spam accounts?
That’s for the privilege of have that blue check. I suspect only his fellow shitposters will do that.
“In the past few days Stew Peters and Nick Fuentes tried to get back on Twitter and were denied. But maybe they will be allowed back on eventually. And of course the burning question is will Trump be allowed back on? Nobody knows.
The worse case scenario as I see it is that Twitter will become a safe space for insurrectionists, bigots, fascists, misogynists and religious lunatics to gather together and ferment their heady brews of conspiracy theories, election denying and let’s face it, assassination plots.”
I don’t know. IF Musk’s little subscription fee goes into effect, Trump won’t go back. I doubt he’s going to want to part with any money (even as paltry a sum as $20 a month is for the “billionaire”). He won’t go back unless he can “convince” Musk to “cut him a deal” (preferably with no cash figures involved going from Trump’s coffers to Musk’s; the other way round, sure, but not from Trump to Musk). As for the “safe space” bit, again, I can’t really see any of those losers wanting to spend $20 a month just so they can spread their lies and propaganda and conspiracy theories. It’s one thing to post your BS for free, but when you have to actually pay to do so, I can’t really see them doing that.
IT IS NOT $20/MONTH FOR USING TWITTER – it’s $20/month for having that blue check next to your name.
I’ve been wondering if Musk has his eye on the WH and is courting the orange rectum’s base. That has me wondering if Musk won’t allow “it” back on Twitter. He wouldn’t want the competition.
Never had a Twitter (or Instagram, or Facebook) account and never will.
I have plenty of agro in my life. No need to seek out more.