Tech News and Issues

Musk acts as if the rules don’t apply to him — and he’s right. He was born into huge wealth and his feet have never touched the ground. Thus he goes through life in a way that would be called “blundering,” were it not for the fact that his extreme wealth — far beyond what Trump even pretends to have — insulates him from any possible consequences…

And thanks to his connection with futuristic-libertarian enterprises such as Space X and Tesla, Musk appeals not only to the current Republican base of brute-worshippers, but also to a burgeoning Republican constituency of crypto and NFT dorks. The “weird nerd” defenses of Musk that pop up on the internet whenever their hero is denigrated are at least as voluminous and ludicrously impassioned as that of any pop star “hive.” These are the kind of guys who, when they see a story about a human getting hurt or killed by a self-driving car, side with the car.

And, I believe, these dorks represent a growing cult of young men who have been rattling around incel-pickup artist territory awhile, but have matured — not enough to start making rational, adult decisions, perhaps, but enough to turn away from these childish forms of anti-social behavior toward other, more adult-seeming forms of anti-social behavior that make them feel less pathetic.

And who is better equipped to represent them than the guy who comes at dorkdom from the totally opposite direction — one who is incompetent to observe society’s rules, not because he was bullied in school or fucked up by feckless parents, but because he has never had to bother. He is as dysfunctional as they are, but rich and famous. No wonder they worship him…

pic.twitter.com/Nz6kTUf0IM

— Jort-Michel Connard ?? (@torriangray) April 15, 2022

Proposed 28th Amendment pic.twitter.com/zFRPWdqEfb

— USankMyBattleshipHat (@Popehat) April 16, 2022

/3 And I picked 35 years for parity — any person would have to be a citizen for 35 years to be eligible.

As for concerns that we might foolishly elect some horrific anti-American tyrant who hates our values and kowtows to some foreign potentate . . . . well.

— USankMyBattleshipHat (@Popehat) April 16, 2022

I dunno, have you seen the replies to his tweets

— Snopp Doog (@chrispossible) April 16, 2022

Elon Musk Is Now Twitter’s Largest Shareholder; And That’s Probably Not A Good Thing https://t.co/E39QLuox9l

— techdirt (@techdirt) April 4, 2022

Elon Musk appears to have a childlike understanding of free speech, especially with regards to how content moderation and free speech work together. But after running a silly poll a few weeks ago, many people assumed that the reason Musk was agitating to see if people felt that Twitter “supported” free speech, was that he might try to buy the company. It turns out, he was already in the process of trying to do so. On Monday it was announced that Musk has accumulated nearly 10% of Twitter’s shares, via some pocket change, making him the single largest shareholder in the company…

It’s unclear, in the short term, what that will mean for the company. It’s not clear, for example, that Musk will get a board seat or become a particularly active board member, but given his agitating, and the way he’s handled some of his other companies, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if he does end up becoming quite active…

Again, I think Musk deserves praise for driving some innovations forward, and having a unique vision on how to execute on big, challenging scientific problems — like sending rockets into space and building electric cars, among other things. But managing speech is not a scientific or engineering problem. It’s a human challenge. And Musk does not exactly have the greatest of track records in showing empathy, or, frankly, common decency.

When the initial rumors were that Musk might start a competing social network, I was at least intrigued to see how that might compete with something like Twitter. But I do wonder how much his naïve take on speech might do serious harm to Twitter…

Musk buying nearly 10% of Twitter is the rare realpolitik move for a guy who likes to style himself a "memelord."

This platform, and the public imagination more broadly, is as central to his success as anything to do with the engineering of EVs or rockets. Much more, actually.

— E.W. Niedermeyer (@Tweetermeyer) April 4, 2022

From a long, thoughtful thread:

Musk buying nearly 10% of Twitter is the rare realpolitik move for a guy who likes to style himself a “memelord.”

This platform, and the public imagination more broadly, is as central to his success as anything to do with the engineering of EVs or rockets. Much more, actually.

Investing in the engine of growth for his personal empire shows that Musk doesn’t just want to be the world’s greatest showman (or “personal brand,” as well call them now). He wants to own the biggest venue, so now anyone replicating his playbook has to go through him.

Musk’s real industrial work, the things he has most fundamentally transformed in his diverse career, exists in the minds and imaginations of the public. His magic trick is “memeing” perception into reality, and Twitter is critical infrastructure for that.

But like a lot of his boldest plays, Musk seems to be firing from the hip on this. He’s already framed his engagement with Twitter around the issue of “free speech,” which is a world-historical level meme, but one that makes this adventure fraught with challenges.

I’m skeptical that he feels the need to tilt the Twitter playing field even further to the benefit of his posting, or the fortunes of his companies. He’s already gotten away with posts others have been banned for, and his investors are infamously active evangelists on here.

That said, Musk’s actions make it incredibly clear that he does NOT believe in free speech and that he is incredibly sensitive to media coverage of himself and his companies. But framing his Twitter investment as a free speech move then pursuing obvious self-interest won’t play.

What buying into Twitter as a free speech crusader does do is entrench him further as an icon of the post-Trump American right, for whom the power of Silicon Valley over online speech is a major issue. Long straddling the culture war divide, Musk is now seriously taking sides…

There will be plenty of time to say more about all this, but for now I’ll conclude with a message to my friends in the media: please start taking Musk’s history of “stealth PR” more seriously. It’s a tough subject to research, but there’s much there the public needs to know now.

Twitter options trades ahead of Musk disclosure raise analysts' eyebrows https://t.co/Tn1C0sbjTa pic.twitter.com/iAwL1lCwMM

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 5, 2022

Twitter closed up 27% after Elon Musk took a 9.2% stake in the company https://t.co/uJnUIspoa5 pic.twitter.com/kZ3fnEFabk

— Bloomberg (@business) April 4, 2022

Re: Elon Musk becoming the biggest Twitter shareholder pic.twitter.com/X6lF1mrChY

— Edward Ongweso Jr (@bigblackjacobin) April 4, 2022