… Is as a bad example to the rest of us, and a risible target for our better journalists. Albert Burneko, at Defector, “Looking Good, Elon! Feeling Good, Trashcan Man!”: … X, née Twitter, the microblogging platform this genius bought on accident for twice its value a little over a year ago and which likely …
Excellent Reads: The Highest Remaining Utility for Elon Musk…Post + Comments (50)
Many different things can rot a person’s mind—can erode their critical and moral faculties, dissolve their awareness of themselves and of the reality of others, turn them into Norma Desmond demanding her close-up. Fame. Wealth. Power. Impunity. Gratification. Sycophants. Drugs. Here is a man who has overindulged in all of these in gargantuan proportions, indulged until he is a great big sodden bag of shit, slumped and sludgy and spongy on the inside, like everything in there has been steeping in a Coca-Cola bath for 30 years. Too spoiled and indolent for the meager work of sussing out a single thought’s contours and borders, to say nothing of connecting it to another, without some Waylon Smithers at hand to do the lifting for him.
He also looks like shit! He looks like the answer to the question “What if toadies emitted gamma radiation.” He looks like somebody made an applehead Martin Bormann doll, sprayed it with vegetable oil, and dressed it up like it was going trick-or-treating as Maverick from Top Gun. I wouldn’t let him pet my dog.
“Musk, who appeared both high and made of plywood, responded with a reality of his own” https://t.co/I0qfanssDd
— Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom) December 2, 2023
Drew Magary, at SFGate — “The end of Elon Musk”:
… A little over a year ago, Musk — already the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and founder of the Boring Company — bought Twitter after making an obscene offer for it seemingly on a lark. Then he tried to back out of the deal by inventing whatever reasons he could find in his desk, and then bought it anyway when he realized that the die was cast. After that, he rebranded Twitter as X, laid off so many staffers that quality control on the platform became all but nonexistent, turned its verification system into a subscription service for thirsty MAGA losers, and watched his new company’s revenues drop by 50% and its American user base drop by nearly 20%.
A smarter billionaire might have cut his losses with X and turned his focus back to minting ugly Cybertrucks. But Musk has put all of his energy, to the great detriment of his other assets, into reshaping X in his own image instead, replete with antisemitic tropes out of the Illinois Nazi playbook and a tacit effort to revive the long-debunked Pizzagate conspiracy. This is because — and I’m not exaggerating — Musk truly believes that he who controls X also controls the world. His exchange with Sorkin yesterday, the entirety of which you can watch on the New York Times’ YouTube channel, all but proves it.
It also proves that he’s a real tit.
After many big-name companies withdrew their advertising from X in the wake of Musk’s continued hate speech, he used his exchange with Sorkin to respond to those companies thusly:
“Don’t advertise,” he said to the audience. “If someone is going to try to blackmail me with advertising? Blackmail me with money? Go f—k yourself. Go. F—k. Yourself. Is that clear? I hope it is. Hey Bob [Iger, CEO of Disney]! If you’re in the audience. That’s how I feel. Don’t advertise.”
Here is where Sorkin had to give Musk a bit of pragmatic business advice. I, like Sorkin, am a journalist and lemme tell you: You’re in BIG trouble if one of US understands how to make a profit better than you do…
Musk, who appeared both high and made of plywood, responded with a reality of his own:
“Actually, what this advertising boycott is going to do is, it’s going to kill the company. And the whole world will know that those advertisers killed the company, and we will document it in great detail.”
Here Musk looked out to the audience, expecting vehement agreement, perhaps even applause. He was greeted with dead silence instead. Sorkin, still residing in the correct reality, told Musk, “But those advertisers, I imagine they’re going to say, ‘WE didn’t kill the company.’”
And here is where Musk revealed his delusion to all. “Oh yeah?” he shot back. “Tell it to Earth.”
“Tell it to Earth.” If you imagine Will Smith delivering that line, it REALLY hits. But this was coming from a purported titan of industry, who was seemingly unaware that no one gives a holy s—t about his social media platform anymore. “Twitter isn’t real life” is a tired sound bite, but it’s never been more true than now. You really are screaming into the void when you post there. But Musk, who told Sorkin that he believed data to be more valuable than gold, remains committed to the idea that owning X means owning the chief information exchange for all of this planet’s 8 billion citizens. He thinks he can Thanos Snap wars and recessions into being merely by posting a recycled Pepe the Frog meme from 2016 on there. There is no reasoning with someone who is so megalomaniacal and so, SO stupid…
Ah well, allow me to respond on behalf of the Earth: The brands are right. No one gives a f—k about X anymore, and no one will be outraged when you — yes, you, Elon Musk — have finally killed it. The days of serial tweeters like me lamenting the days of Twitter Classic are over. We’ve gone elsewhere and use X only sparingly, and only as a necessary evil. Without us, and without any advertising support, X will soon make no money of any sort, and you’ll be left only with the occasional $8 a month from @FreedomBob69…
Elon should've pivoted the conversation to Tesla by telling ex-Twitter advertisers to die in a fire.
— Daily Trix (@DailyTrix) November 30, 2023
‘Squid-clouds of butthurt’, illustrated!