It's well known that the world's richest person, Elon Musk, has some of the world's worst Twitter takes. What a coincidence, then, that he is attempting to buy the platform in the name of "freedom of speech."
Since joining Twitter in 2009, the Tesla CEO's tweets have gotten him in trouble multiple times. That is trouble in both an official capacity with the courts, as well as in the court of public opinion. Nevertheless, he persists in tweeting out truly awful takes, and he really wants to make sure he'll be able to keep doing so: Musk is offering Twitter US$41 billion to take the public company private under his control.
Lest Twitter forget just who is offering himself up as lord and savior, Musk has repeatedly shown that he has bad judgment, and a bad sense of humor. That's not a great combination for anyone to have, let alone a tech magnate with an audience of 82.3 million followers who's in charge of some of the world's most valuable companies. Musk has ended up deleting most of his egregious tweets, but that didn't stop them from impacting his shareholders and devotees. He takes this Twitter influence so seriously that he has said he writes "at least" half of his tweets from the toilet.
Yep, that checks out. Here are Elon Musk's worst tweets, ranked.
8. All his Tesla stock manipulation bullsh*t
Musk has tweeted his opinions and (fake) news about Tesla in ways that have affected the stock price multiple times. The government has, at times, found this behavior "troublesome," and at other times, illegal. He's been fined by the SEC and even had to step down as Tesla chairman as a result.
We're not too fussed about the fluctuations of Tesla stock, but the tweets are awful in that they show how little regard Musk has for the law. Hope the 420 joke was worth it!
7. The time he lashed out at the FAA for delaying his starship launch
Musk called the regulatory body ensuring the safety of space flight "fundamentally broken" after it forced SpaceX to delay a launch. Later, The Verge reported that SpaceX had already ignored at least two safety warnings from the agency. That's a temper tantrum with potentially disastrous consequences.
6. When he gave Kanye West's presidential run his 'full support'
In an election where the consequences were potentially four more years of Donald Trump, rapper Kanye West threw his hat into the ring shortly before people were about to head to the polls. West had already met with Donald Trump and shared racist views at that point. After West elaborated on some of his positions (including calling Planned Parenthood an organization run by white supremacists), Musk said um actually, I think we have more differences than I thought, and retracted the support.
5. His anti-union tweet
Legally, bosses are not supposed to interfere with workers' decisions on whether or not to form a union. So, of course, after Tesla fired an employee who was engaging in workplace organizing, Elon Musk tweeted that Tesla workers were perfectly allowed to form a union — but don't they know how bad unions would be for them? The National Labor Relations Board ultimately ordered Musk to take down the tweet.
4. The 'pedo guy' saga
Remember when a bunch of Thai children were trapped in a cave? Naturally, that led to an Elon Musk Twitter scandal. Cave rescuer Vernon Unsworth claimed Musk's offers to help were a PR stunt. Musk reacted calmly and coolly by hiring a private investigator (with a criminal record) to look into Unsworth, baselessly accusing Unsworth of being a pedophile to BuzzFeed News, and tweeting that Unsworth was a "pedo guy."
Unsworth sued for defamation, but Musk ultimately won the right to insult people online with a legal defense that "pedo guy" was just a generic insult, not a literal accusation.
3. His gross sexist joke
Elon Musk managed to prove he never took an HR workplace harassment training with an insulting joke about women's math abilities and boobs.
Wouldn't you just love to be a female Tesla or SpaceX employee with a boss like that?
2. Getting Covid completely wrong
The coronavirus pandemic has not been a great time for Musk's Twitter takes. At the beginning of the pandemic, he wrongly predicted that it was no big deal, and then also spread pandemic misinformation about testing when he ended up contracting Covid.
He also decided to defy government safety laws, and tweeted about opening Tesla back up for business. Most recently, he criticized the Canadian government's safety measures that inspired the trucker boycott by using a Hitler meme. How could one man, with so much power, get this one so insultingly, dangerously wrong.
1. Trying to buy Twitter... via tweet
Elon Musk has styled himself a free speech warrior, and is trying to go on a crusade in the name of free speech (that nobody wants) by buying Twitter itself.
Musk posted a Twitter poll that allowed him to conclude that Twitter has a free speech problem. He then acquired a majority stake in the company in a way that experts say illegally netted him US$156 million by not properly disclosing his stock purchases.
After he did not end up getting on the Twitter board, Musk made an offer to buy Twitter — which he made on Twitter itself. All this has done is put Musk in the spotlight, and stir up the non-existent controversy around social media moderation.
Truly, the man's hubris knows no bounds.
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