After smearing George Soros, Elon Musk is now a ventriloquist dummy in the lap of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Vinay Menon writes.But, no. The world’s second-richest man is addicted to Twitter. This explains why he overpaid through the nose to own it. If Musk loved fried chicken as much as he loves tweeting, he’d have launched hostile takeover bids for Popeye’s and KFC.
Twitter feeds his ego. It fills his belly with glee.
Mr. Musk used to make headlines for his innovative vision on electric cars or space exploration. Now he makes headlines for dumbass tweets. On Monday, devoid of any context, he wrote: “Soros reminds me of Magneto.”
It raised eyebrows, including inside the Anti-Defamation League.
George Soros is the real-life Jewish billionaire who lived through the Nazi occupation of Hungary and now donates most of his fortune to liberal causes. This has made him the ultimate bogeyman to the right. The only way conservatives could hate him more is if Hillary divorced Bill and shacked up with George in the basement of a pizza joint run by AOC and rogue marketers from Bud Light.
You don’t need a Sharpie to connect the antisemitic dots.
But when another Twitter user had the temerity to say Soros operates with “good intentions,” Musk ratcheted up his smear job: “You assume they are good intentions. They are not. He wants to erode the very fabric of civilization. Soros hates humanity.”
That Musk now seems like a ventriloquist dummy flopped in the lap of a Marjorie Taylor Greene is beyond tragic. What a waste of a gigantic brain. There is no evidence Soros hates humanity. But there is a recent financial disclosure — something Musk did not mention — that shows Soros sold his 130,000 shares of Tesla.
Musk does not believe Soros hates humanity.
Musk hates Soros for leaving Tesla in a ditch.
In a rambling interview with CNBC on Tuesday, punctuated with more awkward moments of silence than a Kanye-Kim visitation hand-off of their kids, Musk defended his anti-Soros tweets with, “That’s my opinion” and “freedom of speech.”
Musk has spent the last year draping himself in the noble gossamer of free speech.
He claims it is why he dropped $44 billion (U.S.) to become Chief Twit.
What a crock of poop emojis.
When Turkey asked Twitter to throttle the free speech of dissidents before this month’s election, Musk obliged. When India asked Twitter to censor a BBC doc critical of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Musk obliged.
There’s a reason Iranian disinformation is accelerating on Twitter.
Would the Chief Twit ever exercise his free speech to say Taiwan is an independent country or the Uyghurs are victims of systemic human rights abuse? Don’t bet your Tesla Model 3. That kind of free speech would be bad for business in China.
“I’m allowed to say what I want,” Musk told CNBC.
Fair enough. But the same is not true for employees at Twitter, Tesla or SpaceX who, upon offering even the mildest of constructive criticism, may soon realize their free speech has catapulted them into the unemployment lines. The journalists blocked by Musk for writing negative stories might as well time travel to the old Soviet Union.
Musk champions free speech for himself.
For everyone else, free speech is up for grabs.
This is now the albatross around his neck. The dumbest genius alive is coming across as a raving hypocrite with the media literacy of a North Korean tween. Musk’s priorities are baffling. Instead of perfecting autonomous vehicles or colonizing Mars, this disrupter with the DNA of a scatological troll is wasting his precious time on Twitter to score cheap retweets and likes from his global army of red-pilled fans?
It’s as if Michael Jordan, in his prime, quit basketball for graffiti.
It’s maddening. Does Elon Musk, who says he works seven days a week and sleeps six hours a night, not have anything better to do than slander George Soros or spread deranged conspiracy theories? Musk was one of the first to amplify the lunacy after Paul Pelosi was attacked with a hammer and the far-right claimed the assailant was a lover. Musk questioned if the mass shooter in Texas this month was really a white supremacist. Hmm. Maybe the neo-Nazi tattoos were a false flag?
During Tuesday’s CNBC interview, Musk also referred to Bellingcat, the open source collective of investigative journalists based in the Netherlands, as a “psy-ops company.” Huh? He might seek a second opinion from Alexei Navalny.
Bellingcat is to psy-ops as Twitter is to popsicles. What’s next? Is Musk going to shadowban Lululemon after claiming it is a branch of the NSA?
The facts no longer matter to Musk. He’s too entranced with playing footsies with the crazies. The glowing feedback he gets is a balm for his fragile ego. One of the smartest blokes to ever walk the planet can’t stop sharing sophomoric memes.
Musk should devote his energy to artificial intelligence, which he says could destroy civilization. He should unleash his high IQ on climate change or world hunger. He could probably solve traffic gridlock in big cities in six months flat.
But he’s too consumed with ephemeral nonsense and self-serving vendettas.
Elon Musk hates humanity.
